


UltraViolet

by Wildeve_of_the_Heath



Category: Pacific Rim (2013), Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternative Universe - Pacific Rim, Character Deaths, Child Abuse, Disassociation, F/F, Graphic Violence, Mentions of Rape, Suicide, alchohol abuse, cameos of Pacific Rim characters, excessive cursing (thank you ymir), heavily based yumikuri, locations based on real life, mentions of other pairings, power trips, rp collab, takes place before Pacific Rim's story line, yumikuri
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-18
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-02-17 22:27:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2325446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wildeve_of_the_Heath/pseuds/Wildeve_of_the_Heath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the Records of Titan's Coordinator: Dr. Hanji Zoe<br/>Data Log: #23<br/>Date: September 2 2015<br/>Location: Los Angeles Shatterdome, Los Angeles, CA, United States<br/>We wanted to test the possibilities of a single Jaeger pilot system within a one-pilot machine, unfortunately, this rule still stands- the neural lobe to interface with the Jaeger was proved too much for a single pilot. </p><p>We must implement a two-pilot system....</p><p>PACIFIC RIM/SNK - RP COLLAB<br/>Takes place in the "Mark 1 Glory Days" (before Pacific Rim's current storyline)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Born out of boredom, this massive RP had came to be. Painstakingly editing and compiling every individual post, this story is a combination of it all.
> 
> This is a collaboration with [Reservation Red](https://www.fanfiction.net/u/2511958/Reservation-Red), updates are based on how often we reply...go check out her stuff and yeah, enjoy this! 
> 
> As this is an ongoing piece, and to keep up with updating, I have decided to post it here as well.

Date: March 12 2016  
Location: Los Angeles Shatterdome, Los Angeles, CA, United States  
Time: 2000

Ymir scuffed her boot against a step of the stairs, she nonchalantly glanced down at the more ruined edge before continuing on. Brow covered in sweat, the heat of California battered her far worse than the burn off of a flamethrower- she wished they were posted somewhere colder, like Alaska or somewhere farther north. Russia would be too much-

Her thoughts had been traveling far nowadays. At first, acceptance into the Defense Corps with Ilse was thrilling, they had the opportunity to take what they had been doing all their lives to a new level; Ilse as the theorist and Ymir as the practitioner, though both participated equally in both sides.

Sides included being Jaeger pilots, full-time Rangers.

Ymir was heavier built than Ilse, more stocky and hardened, more rougher in mind and thought. She thought less of the situation later on, only choosing to focus on the now; opposite of that, Ilse was a calculating woman, she always made sure to think ahead, she had more of the brains than Ymir when it came to strategies. Without Ilse, Ymir wouldn't have made it through their first drop on sheer power alone.

Now the brains was gone, Ymir had lost her head quite literally.

It all started six months ago.

Back in the dock below her, Ilse and several other researchers were busily calibrating the newest designed Jaeger, one that Ymir sketched out herself and had Ilse take care of the rest. She was the one who took care of the technical stuff, Ymir simply just made it look good- the Defense Corps approved their blueprints via design team.

It went through numerous changes but overall, it kept the semblance of what Ymir started with the night she had one too many shots. Now her pride and joy was sitting in its hold, still not being deployed.

Again, dragging back to six months before, Ilse had formulated an offshoot plan to create a machine to be piloted by a single individual as this particular design was smaller than most Jaegers. It sounded convincing at first, up until the woman suffered severe brain damage from attempting to Drift alone- what was that girl thinking?

Ilse died a few weeks later.

Ymir paused and gazed over the railing and past the sparks that flew off of workers trying to weld pieces together, there it was; the Titan, it was a lame name but easy to pronounce, and downright powerful too. But the stature of it was anything far from being a titan itself. She walked on, eyes still fixated on the metal plates- this was all she had left of Ilse, the last thing they had worked on together.

The Titan underwent various changes to accommodate two pilots, not one.

Today was the day Ymir would be selecting her co-pilot.

Fists clenching, she brought one to her brow to wipe away her sweat again to make her way to the bridge.

Krista felt sweat roll down her neck and back as she unzipped her work jumpsuit. She stepped away from the knee joints of the Jaeger, letting the top of her suit fall down. She never knew it got so hot down in California. Up in Seattle, days like this were rare and far between.

She was starting to miss the constant dreary rain.

She sat at the edge of her platform as the davit pulled her up and away. She watched as the Jaeger became active.

"Hydraulic evaluation commencing in twenty seconds," the intercom announced as workers moved from the Jaeger.

Steam and exhaust vented from it as she reached the designated floor with a shake. Its fumes finally hitting her as the heat became unbearable. She hid her face behind her arm, but kept her eyes downward.

The Jaeger commenced the neural handshake. Nothing was out of place.

A foot moved.

Weight shifted.

A deafening bang sent everyone reeling and cupping their ears despite the earplugs. Krista cursed as she stood up, walking over to the floor manager who was frowning.

"Goddammit! What the fuck was that now?!" He roared as the Jaeger was sent back and deactivated. The crew was upon it in swarms, looking at the joint that had caused the abnormal noise. He caught Krista's gaze.

"Lenz," he directed his question to her.

"If I had to guess, aeration, sir." She stiffened, the pit of her stomach growing cold and hard.

"The pump inlet must have some damage from the last encounter that the crew might've missed. We will re-assess the intake lines." She could see his gaze harden at her.

"We've been having the same goddamn problem for the past two days. Either you and your crew figure it the fuck out, or get the fuck out. We can't have some fucking Jaeger falling over with a goddamn bad knee! Do I make myself clear?!"

The floor manager threw his clipboard to his assistant.

"We'll continue this later!" He began to walk off as his assistant fidgeted.

"Sir, the Marshal wants this done today." The assistant cowered as the floor manager stomped back and stared at his assistant.

"I'm not telling him this. Fuck that. You, Lenz, since it's your screw up, take the blame! Go to the Marshal, now!"

Krista frowned.

"Sir?" Never once had she been told to leave the floor. Let alone go and take the heat for someone else's mistakes. It wasn't her fault he kept firing her experienced crew members over small reasons. Now it was her turn for the chopping block.

"You heard me. Go!" He waved her off. Krista frowned but nodded. She went through the hallways till she was alone.

When she first heard about the Jaeger program, she immediately set forth to signing up. She had worked herself to the core every day at the gym with a hired trainer. She was able to get tutors to help her with mechanics as she prepared herself for the testing.

She was going to be in the front lines for humanity. She would embody hope against the Kaiju.

In the end, she was disqualified due to low physical evaluation. She was given a position to be a technical mechanic instead.

She kept reminding herself that it was close enough.

Close enough.

Krista kicked a trash can nearby and kept marching towards the Marshal's office and stopped. Where was the Marshal's office?

Krista kicked the trash can again and clenched her jaw. Sweat was already back on her as she wiped it off with her hand and smeared it onto her suit.

"Goddammit," she muttered under her breath.

The people she sparred with...they were weak, lame, hardly worth even breathing the same air as her.

She whipped her pole once more at the last move.

"4-0," the referee announced as a crowd clapped softly at Ymir's final victory. "That is all."

"Get me a new set!" Ymir nearly shouted to the Marshal, hands shaking in frustration. Every one of them she clashed with increased her anger, she wished Ilse was back, they'd be fighting by now, winning, just as they always had been. None of these idiots were compatible, she glared down at the young man that was flat on his back; he scrambled to his feet and staggered away with a limp.

Only half an hour in here and she was done.

Erwin evaluated her movements, though he spoke with a calm demeanor, his voice was laced in disappointment,"At least try to form a dialogue with them, Ranger-"

"None of these people are good enough," Ymir hissed as she went to stand by him, arms folded over the pole she used to prop herself up. Next to her, at her feet, was a bundle of her own clothes, it was too hot to slap them on, too hot to bother with them. She wiped her forehead and looked on, aloof of all of the failures that feebly threw worried glances at her.

Her deployment had been delayed because of this, because of all the failures. Every one of them, no matter how far they were brought in from all over the world, were poor matches; Erwin wasn't even looking at their papers at this point, it was like he was pulling them out from a hat.

She brushed her bangs away.

"If we can't get you someone in a week, we'll have to replace your position altogether," he broke to her.

Her lips curled into a snarl- he couldn't do that, she didn't want anyone else piloting that Jaeger except her; it was all she had left, all of Ilse sat in that metal. She gripped the wood harder, nails digging into it. Slowly and bitterly, she said to him,"Then get me a street rat, someone who can fight, don't have to be certified."

"Langnar, you know that's not an option," he started. "Each of these machines..."

As he explained himself, Ymir's eyes drifted to the door to the right, one that led into the main hallway. It opened, hesitantly at first, then all the way to reveal a small blond; Ymir's head perked up at her, wondering if she were another candidate.

Krista frowned as she found herself in a room full of the Rangers. Up in front of everyone was the Marshal. She quickly made her way to him, patting down any loose hairs before stepping in front of the crowd.

"Sir," she gave a short salute.

"I have news regarding—" her eyes went over to the woman beside him. She was sweaty and looking rather angry. Krista averted her eyes back to the Marshal.

"—the Colossal. The joint keeps having aeration problems. I am disappointed that my crew was unable to fix it the first time." Despite being sweaty and hot, she felt her cheeks flush more.

The fact she had to strip herself of her pride in front of others made her upset.

It wasn't even her job to do this.

To be disciplined in front of the Rangers no less…

Her eyes glanced back over at the woman's adamant look. She almost gave a steely one back.

"Who's this?" Ymir inquired sharply, though she was intrigued by the new prospect.

"Krista Lez, mechanic," Krista stated immediately.

"Here for a try out?"

"N...not exactly-"

Ymir could already tell by her build that she was more than a mechanic, her arms weren't lean but rather defined; regardless, she had the urge to finish up one more fight.

"I want to fight her," Ymir said.

Erwin checked his list, then back at Krista; he truly was pulling names out of a hat when he motioned for Krista, his hand going towards the rack of poles.

"Excuse me, sir?" Krista's eyes were wide as the other girl was sizing her up. She was already on the fighting pad.

"It seems you cannot keep up with the work conditions and requirements out on the floor," Erwin said, tucking his clipboard under his arm. "Prove you're worth being in the front lines for humanity instead."

Krista's jaw was clenched.

"Your name, again?" His ink pen clicked as he didn't even look up at her.

"Krista Lenz." She repeated as she was tearing her jumpsuit off and throwing it off to the side.

She grabbed a spare pole and went to the mat. She felt her knuckles ache at her grip as she stood.

"Alright, Lenz, entertain Miss Langnar for us." His eyes rested on the two.

Krista gave a quick flourish, remembering the weight of it. She kept her eyes locked to the woman before her. Sighing, she focused on the match. How long ago had it been since she did this? It felt ages ago.

Sweat beaded down her neck as she stood still, keeping her pole at the ready and her other hand up, palming the air.

They started off at their respected spots.

The referee voiced out,"Go."

"Don't tell me this is all you have to offer," Ymir said loudly to Erwin as the audience stopped to watch, wondering how badly Ymir could waste the blond. Ymir hefted the pole lightly, twirling it skillfully while approaching the center to intimidate the blond. Her raw power had so much control to channel it into graceful yet devastating flourishes.

She stopped and waited for no more than a second, she took the first swing, aiming for Krista's waist as the blond never moved from her position in the middle.

"1-0," came the voice, Ymir stepped back and had her pole at her side, ready to be drawn like a sword.

"It's not much fun if you just stand there," Ymir sneered, expression showing nothing but pure boredom; was this seriously an easy fight?

Krista felt the sweat drip down to her jaw line. The pole swung and stopped by her side. She kept staring at the woman's eyes.

"2-0."

After seeing a sample of the woman's style, Krista stepped forward. She held her sword downward and circling to the right. She quickly slapped the sword against Ymir's until they were locked. She kept moving until they were close together.

The poles shook from the force.

Krista knew she wouldn't last in a battle of strength. Shifting her gravity, she shot her foot out to slam it against Ymir's ankle. The woman was fast and avoided it but not without retreating enough to give Krista room to work. Krista stumbled at the unexpected speed from her disrupted center of gravity.

Krista steadier herself but gasped, finding the woman already advancing on her from behind.

She was too fast.

Krista braced for the pole and saw the woman over extended slightly. Krista made use of it and quickly reached behind her and grabbed the woman's upper arm with her left hand. She dropped the pole in her right and quickly whipped her elbow toward Ymir.

The tall woman shot her head back to avoid the elbow that narrowly avoided her face. Her hands went up to grab Krista's elbow, but it was going in a full arch to her held arm.

Ymir attempted to pull away, but Krista predicted this. Following the flow of Ymir's arm pull, she twisted it and shot her elbow into the joint enough to cause an opening. In one swift motion, Krista was holding Ymir's arm against the woman's back. She was wrenching it upward with one arm and the other hand held the side of Ymir's face.

Using the weight and force of struggle, Krista threw Ymir down in the way the woman was trying to pull away.

Ymir recovered but not without Krista holding her pole at Ymir's face.

"2-1."

"Damn," Ymir hissed, surprised by the short woman having skills that were efficient.

The pole was lifted away from her and Ymir got up while shrugging away the stinging numbness in her joint. Not one person managed to score one against her throughout the entire time, she could feel the anticipated breaths of the onlookers, each of them wondering how she would deal with the girl. Ymir sighed and repositioned herself; the only other person to beat her every time was Ilse.

She tried to imagine that sister standing in front of her, tried to remember how Ilse would take her down.

Instead, she lunged forth, her pole resting gently in one palm as she swung it, aiming for Krista's head, but the blond deflected it and shot her hand out to her weakened joint; Ymir whirled about, stooping low to swipe her foot towards the back of the girl's knee. Krista immediately undid herself and hopped out of her foots range.

For that moment she was in the air, Ymir used her weight to thrust her grappled arm downwards, hefting Krista onto her back. Instantly, Ymir pressed a barefoot against her wrist, the one connected to the hand that held her pole. Ymir was able to wrench her arm away and readied to strike the end of her pole downwards as she cage her in place with her body, stopping only a hair away from Krista's nose.

"3-1."

"You're breaking my record," Ymir huffed as she got up and stepped away.

Krista felt her hold her breath when Ymir was above her. She felt her face flush as she stood up, brushing herself off. She tucked her hair behind an ear, feeling it starting to stick to her face.

It had been a long time since she did this. She felt at ease despite her job being on the line.

Krista didn't say anything to the woman about breaking her record. She felt herself swell in pride that she at least held one point.

Once they were back in their spots, Krista held her pole up in front of her with both hands. They were signaled to start. Krista knew Ymir was already catching on so she'd have to bait an initiation to counter. She could only hope her luck and skill would allow her to shift it to her advantage.

Krista shot forward, holding her pole and arms out too far to see if Ymir would take it. It would make her vulnerable—the move itself was a double edge sword with unpredicted balance.

Immediately, Ymir's hand was around her left hand—her non dominant, a good move—and shot it upward with Krista's pole and cocked her wrist, making her drop her pole. Krista used Ymir's pull as momentum for her right leg to kick upward. Her leg flew by Ymir's face. Trying to gain advantage, Ymir took Krista's left leg and tried to pull her down, but Krista hooked her right leg onto Ymir's arms, throwing her down with.

They hit the ground with Ymir on top and moving to pin, but Krista used her grapple on Ymir's left arm to roll them into another roll. Once Ymir was underneath her, she locked Ymir's right arm into a hold. She could feel Ymir's face flush against her lower abdomen and uncomfortable hot breath.

"3-2."

Krista withdrew her upper body from Ymir's arm and face. She was straddling her left arm and looking down at Ymir's freckled face.

She felt Ymir shift and Krista stood up, allowing them both to retrieve their poles.

As Krista got up, Ymir felt her abdomen throb from the girl's sudden weight. She hauled herself onto her feet; she was feeling exhausted for once, the kind of fatigue she only got from Ilse. She promised herself that if the girl manages to earn a point above her, she would stop the fight. She gathered her wits again, she was signaled to start once more.

She decided to come in aggressively, striking her pole against her all the while keeping her distance. Their clacking bangs resonated throughout the room as Ymir let out haggard grunts as she struck quickly, trying to tire Krista out. With each hit for the girl keeping up with her, she could feel the pole on the other end beginning to grow slack.

Her strikes increased tenfold in speed and strength, up until they locked against one another; by then, Krista's arms were shaking. Ymir made to withdraw and hit her once more but she backed away to swing the pole at her again, resuming her barrage to exhaust her.

Krista felt her arms weaken. The woman's relentless attacks were wearing on her. If she didn't hurry, she'd run out of strength and Ymir would win. Krista caught what little breath she could get when they were locked. She could see the resolve in the woman's gaze. Krista gulped down air when she returned to fighting with blind passion.

If Krista wanted to strike she had to now or she'd lose and not be able to go for another round.

Ymir took another strike, but Krista dropped her pole. Ymir's pole went narrowly by her right arm, almost slapping against her hand. Krista used this opportunity to hook her arm under Ymir's right arm. With the last of her strength, she jumped and used momentum to swing up and around onto Ymir's back with a newly found grapple on the woman's arm.

Ymir quickly went to defend her immobilized right arm and Krista threw her left foot around Ymir's left arm, holding it in place.

For the people around them, in the split second this position was held, it looked like an awkward piggy back ride. Ymir pulled with all her might to free her right hand. Krista grabbed and held Ymir's elbow and pushed her weight with Ymir's pull. The two fell but not without Ymir forcing the two to land on Krista's back.

A pop was heard but the two rolled again until they were still—Krista's legs hooked around Ymir's head and right arm that was held by Krista's hands.

"3-3."

Immediately, she released and let herself fall fully onto the ground. She was breathing and sweating profusely.

And her back, oh fuck!

Her back!

Krista groaned in pain.

It wasn't broken, but did she do something to it!

"Shit," she groaned, rolling onto her stomach. She couldn't go for another round which meant she lost by default.

She'd lose her job. Tears welled up in her eyes as she tried to steady her breathing.

Ymir panted and stood above her, watching her, she didn't bother going back to her spot.

Krista's eyes still held tears as some fell, but she quieted her groaning. As she tried to stand, it only hurt more. She stayed on the ground as she tried to listen.

"I've had enough," Ymir huffed, a sly grin danced upon her lips. Something about fighting the girl excited her, leaving her wondering if she didn't lay on the floor that there would be more to come. Her strength was already worn down as a bead of sweat trickled down her face, she wiped it away. She glanced at Erwin for a moment, then fell to one knee to rest. "I want this one to be my co-pilot."

"She's just a mechanic," Erwin started,"but I remember her face, she didn't qualify to be a Ranger-"

"She's qualified for me," Ymir pressed on.

Krista stiffened when Ymir said she made her decision. Krista's head shot up to stare at Erwin with her mouth open.

He didn't argue against her. They were pressed on time and, with Ymir's need for a compatible partner adding to the mix, he couldn't refuse her demand. He quickly wrote down her name to the list and circled it.

Krista regurgitated her regrets as she bit back more tears, but she held her gaze. When Ymir forced Erwin's hand, Krista felt her eyes finally release the torrents. A great sense of pride and relief left her falling back onto the ground, shaking.

Ymir sighed heavily and looked back at Krista.

She couldn't place her tongue on it as the medics rushed in to lift Krista onto a cot.

Krista didn't fight the medics that brought her on a cot, even if it was excessive. She kept her hands covering her face until she felt like she'd suffocate and die of a heat stroke.

Once she was laying there groaning once more, Ymir brought herself to stand up to lock eyes with her again.

"Not bad," Ymir praised her as she followed her, she quickly picked up her belongings, left her pole, and continued on with her. When she removed her hands, Ymir was staring at her.

She choked back tears and steadied her breathing.

"Thank you," Krista hiccuped with a big grin.

She was now a Ranger.


	2. Chapter 2

Date: March 12 2016  
Location: Los Angeles Shatterdom, Los Angeles, CA, United States  
Time: 2200

"I need someone in my head," Ymir stated as she smiled just slightly.

The walk to the infirmary was a short one.

Once Krista was checked in to reveal she pulled a muscle, she was forced to be given two weeks of rest to recuperate and also familiarize herself with Ymir. As they sat there, Krista in bed as Ymir was on a chair nearby, the heat of the summer nipped at their skin.

Ymir brushed away at her neck with a towel as she started off,"Well...where'd you come from?"

Krista sipped on water as she sat on the bed, refusing to even think of getting under the covers. She was glad her back would recover soon enough. She grimaced at remembering it popping during their training.

When Ymir began to talk to her, she didn't seem as bad as she was before. She was actually almost smiling instead of glaring.

"I'm from Seattle, but grew up in Spokane. It's another place in Washington." She thought back to the Riverfront park there, but it was blurry. It had been a long time since she left home. She was staring at the floor and looked up to Ymir. She had strange eyes. They were like a refracting amber—dark then brown and then a gold.

"Where are you from?" Krista returned the question.

Ymir sat back deeper in her chair as she reached over to her pants to fetch a pack of cigarettes to wind herself down. She took one, lit it, and inhaled. Once the question came, she exhaled as a nurse glared at her for smoking.

Ymir ignored her as she recalled,"This shit hole called Acton, just an hour and half from here near Palmdale. I'm your genuine trailer trash." She laughed at her own joke. "Overall, it ain't a pretty place, surprised I even got here with Ilse."

She paused for a moment.

The thought of Ilse snagged a part of her mind, she grew crestfallen but hid it well behind the smoke. Yes, she was shocked they made it here, she was downtrodden that only one of them stayed. She sighed once more and took another long drag.

"You know Ilse, right?"

When Ymir mentioned a name Krista nodded.

"Yeah, she made the Titan." She knew that from the things the crew spoke of. She was apparently a Ranger too. Krista was glanced away from Ymir and the smoke. She cleared her throat.

"I know who she was to you, too." She said. She didn't apologize to Ymir about the loss, because pity was the world's worst gift given to the fallen.

"The Titan has a beautiful structure. She is unique from head to toe and hydraulics to ventilation. She was fun to work on." Krista mentioned. She recalled seeing the towering Jaeger with awe. It was styled so differently from the humanoid ones. It was an eccentric piece that went beyond function—it was a piece of artwork.

Mentioning Titan brought a new light for Ymir to look at, she lightened up.

Krista gave a small smile that they both were passionate about the Jaegers.

"I made that thing myself, drew her out and stuff, Ilse just added it and brought it to life- damn, she was brilliant," Ymir added. "Brilliant for her own good though."

Krista drew her knees up to her chest and felt her back tug in protest but stopped once she stayed in the position. She turned her head to keep looking at Ymir, watching how her eyes spoke instead of her mouth."You guys did wonderful. She's beautiful."

Ymir decided to go past the subject.

"We both studied at MIT, nearly got our agrees there but then K-Day came slamming into our faces so we dropped out to work on our own; turns out we roused enough attention back home and so we were chosen to get into the Jaeger Program two years later and then here we are, at least here I am," Ymir said conversationally.

It seemed that all the gifted and lucky made it into the Ranger system.

Krista moved her head to stare at the wall in front of her. She recalled barely getting into the program, but never made it past the training. She wasn't suited, but now…she was. Krista buried her head into her knees with a bubbly smile.

"You guys must've been quite the sight. To attract the attention of the Jaeger program in such an isolated area, so you've said it is? It must've been surprising to hear from them, too!" Krista complimented. She was lightly jealous, too, that they had the program come to them than gruelingly climb to it.

"It must have been amazing." She pulled her head from her knees with that smile still intact.

"We weren't surprised," Ymir admitted, going on,"more of relieved, y'see, we were in prison. Just at the hearing to see if we qualified for good behavior, the Marshal came in saying we were potential prospects, next thing we knew, we were busy building our Jaeger."

She seemed to have gotten a whiff of that contagious smile.

"Shit," Ymir huffed.

Krista shot her head towards Ymir.

"Prison? What did you guys do?" She blurted before she could school her expression and curiosity. She shut her mouth and stared down at her feet.

"You don't have to answer that. Sorry," she was embarrassed when she glanced back at Ymir and saw her smiling. Krista felt her lips tug as she covered her mouth with a hand.

She gave a soft giggle. She could feel the conversations pull and give.

Ymir shrugged. "It's not important, really."

Moving on.

"Why're you a mechanic? You could hold yourself against a fight pretty well, Erwin's gotta be stupid for dropping you."

Krista nodded. She wasn't surprised Ymir didn't want to explain, but she did feel a bit sad that she refused.

"Oh," Krista shifted in the bed, drawing her knees closer.

"It wasn't my first choice, but my scores showed I excelled in mechanics." She explained. She didn't want to talk much on how hard she trained and barely even surpassed the physical evaluations.

"I was the last pick and all the Jaegers were filled out by the time I could've been selected. By then, I was working with the Jaegers." She didn't go further than that. She recalled waiting for the next training to come along. She'd watch the partners go off into battle and not come back at all sometimes.

She remembered going to the training room to speak with Erwin but he was too busy to listen to her request to try again. In the end, she knew that they wiped her from the trainees and choices as a Ranger and she went back to being a part of the floor crew, nursing her pride. They said that they'd send new if an opening came, she never received one.

"I was so into the Jaegers that I forgot about training until now." She laughed.

"Hm...I nearly didn't get into the Ranger system at first, my psyche was too much for anyone to handle and Ilse wasn't geared to be a pilot in the first place (she wanted mechanics); fortunately, Ilse was actually the only one I could successfully Drift with so she was enlisted with me as a Ranger in the end since there was a shortage of hands at the time." She shrugged. "Hard to find people that are compatible for me, real hard. Six months, up until now that Erwin was ready to rip my position and Jaeger from me."

She grinned and took a longer drag at her cigarette.

"Glad you came into the wrong room, eh? Good for both of us, you got what you want and I keep what I have."

Krista nodded in agreement. She wondered what it meant that she had a hard Drift match.

"I've only heard how drifts are. I never was able to drift with anyone. I only got as far as combat compatibility."

She remembered seeing the trainees and their partners going into the room, talking, and then they'd leave but staring at each other as if they could speak through their minds.

"Is it true…you can talk in your heads to each other?" Krista played with the straps of her tank top.

Nobody knew what it was like and because of how different the pilots were to their partners, people expected that was what happened. She thought it was just talk, but the rumors made her wonder.

Krista's mind wandered as she blushed.

Did that mean they could read each other's minds and see what they were imagining? She tried to keep a straight place as her mind went to dirtier thoughts.

"Eh, something like that. It's hard to explain because once you get into someone's head, you just...know who they are, you see everything that makes them; you know how their minds work, you can read them more than anything else even when you're outside of the Jaeger," Ymir explained, recalling what she had been through before. "At times, you can feel if they're in danger..."

She remembered.

She remembered when she saw Ilse's experiment go wrong. She was in the control room for a majority of them time, she watched as Ilse sat there, apprehensive but enthusiastic to see if her theory worked.

Ymir's locked onto no particular point ahead of her. As her cigarette burned on, she ignored it while Ilse's screams began to echo through her ears. Watching those electric pulses go through her body, her eyes going bloodshot red, her entire form convulsing violently as she keened for everything to stop, it was all worse when she could practically feel her pain.

She dropped her cigarette and shook her head to rub her eyes, she could still see Ilse.

"...yeah, even outside the Jaeger, you just know."

Krista didn't know what was going through Ymir's mind. Those amber orbs weren't talking anymore.

"Oh," she said for the lack of anything else. She was sure Ymir was thinking of something bad. Krista felt herself feel anxious at the idea that Ymir would be able to truly know her. It scared her. She'd see things Krista didn't want people to question or talk about.

"Isn't it scary?" She asked.

"They'd know everything about you." Just because someone knows doesn't mean they will accept. She bit her lip and started playing with the bed's blanket between her fingers.

"Oh," she quickly turned red. She gave a shy glance at Ymir.

"If you can feel they're in danger…does that mean…you know…you can sense…if they love someone? Or…something like that?" Krista wouldn't say she was curious if the other felt sexual pleasures or not.

Her mind was still reeling on the idea of Ymir knowing how she felt, where she came from, and what she went through. She felt her hand grip the sheets.

Ymir would see Krista for all her worth and would realize what she was now wasn't her true self.

The question knocked Ymir's train of thought off of its rails, at least she was snapped back into the present. She raised a brow, wondering herself if love was a possibility to feel in the Drift.

"It's not scary, it's just another life...and about love, if hatred exists, so can love. If pain does, so does pleasure, I wouldn't be surprised if anything could be felt, again, just knowing it all can overwhelm someone. But you got to keep in mind that they're just another person, it's no different if they see anything you've done."

Ymir's words were calming. Krista released her hold on the bed and nodded.

"Right," she said with a sigh. Ymir had things she didn't say, too. They both would know each other more than anyone el—No. Ilse knew.

She smiled at Ymir.

"I hope we can drift an—"

And then it hit her.

"I will be helping to pilot the Titan." She stated with eyes wide. Out of all the Jaegers, it was her favorite. The idea of it was so farfetched that she didn't even dream of it earlier, but now…

"I will co-pilot the Titan." She shot a hand to her mouth and stared at Ymir in surprise. "Oh God."

"What are you spluttering about?" Ymir asked of her.

"I-I didn't think of it till now! I'm a ranger and your co-pilot! So, that means… I get to co-pilot Titan! It's all hitting me! I-I can't believe it!" She gave a nervous giggle. She was so wrapped up in the fact she held her ground and that her back was messed up.

"I never thought I'd get this far." She glanced away to the door way. She wanted to go start training immediately.

"When can I enter it? How soon?" Her questions shout out followed by a wide smile. She had only been on the outside of the Jaeger, never the inside.

"She must be beautiful." She tried to imagine the interior.

"You need to recuperate, after that, physical training for you; you'll be hefting tons and your body needs to withstand it," Ymir said,"but...we can test the Drift first to make sure we're compatible at all."

Krista winced at the mention of Drifting.

She wondered if Ymir would think the same about her after the drift and saw her from inside out. If she would still be considered beautiful.

Ymir glanced at the clock.

"Damn, we've been up late. You and me, we had a rough day, am I right? I'm going to head to bed, I'll be back in the morning."

-...-

Days rolled by just like Ymir as she came to visit every other day, making sure Krista was recovering properly. Though her stays weren't as lengthy as her first time there, Ymir just picked up certain things about Krista; things like how she would dance around certain subjects. She knew at the first hour that the girl was hiding something inside, then again, she had to lower her curiosity as Drifting would reveal everything.

Watching her, observing her, made Ymir realize that she hated that she could trace bullshit faster than their technology can read Kaiju signatures.

There was something else in her that Ymir couldn't help but notice throughout the conversations.

Ymir didn't exactly know why she kept visiting her, but she was compelled to see her. It was at the end of one week that Ymir decided to prod into Krista once again; she brought most of Ilse's blueprints with her this time, laying them across Krista's bed.

After two hours of this, they only went through half of them, Ymir had to ask her,"Why are you here? I mean, fighting here?"

Krista was caught off guard when Ymir asked. She had been reading a blueprint carefully and almost crinkled it in her clenching hands.

"Why else? Humanity needs people to protect it." She said. It was a vague answer, she knew, but she didn't want to venture to that topic. The scheduled date for drifting was coming closer and closer like a pendulum. Ymir would know everything soon enough. Even knowing that, she couldn't bring herself to say it.

Krista knew Ymir understood there was more. She was smart and perceptive. Putting the blue print back to its respective spot on the bed, Krista sighed. She took Ymir's hand into her own and held them. She forgot what human contact was like. She was also flattered that Ymir would come to see her most days during her recovery.

"You'll know soon enough, ok?" Her voice was somber. She glanced over at Ymir, releasing her hand.

"I'm a coward, aren't I?" She smiled but her voice betrayed the sight.

"No one's a coward in the Drift, you can't hide yourself in there," Ymir said, sighing at another failed attempt to dig a little deeper. "Personally, I'm not here to protect humanity, those animals can go fuck themselves for all I care."

"I'm sure I'll see your reasons," she spoke but took Ymir's hand again. She fanned it out to look at the pianist fingers. They were much larger than hers but still held some softness here and there.

"You have nice hands," she took the other hand and examined it. She looked at the lines on each one.

"Have you ever noticed that both your hands have different lines? Everyone's left and right is different from each other." Krista took back Ymir's right hand and traced the lines.

"Ever get your palms read?" She questioned.

Ymir tilted her head, wondering at where the blond was going with this. She didn't wrench her hand away, she let her run her fingertips over the skin; she started growing curious about what she was doing.

"Never, you do that sorta stuff?"

"I know enough to give you a small reading." Krista put Ymir's hand into her lap, tracing the long line.

"You think fast and come to conclusions without much thought. This is good, but can be bad."

Krista's thumb on her spare hand began to unconsciously rub Ymir's forearm.

"Your heart line says you put your freedom above everything else."

Krista stopped her hands with a laugh.

"You show your love through actions than words."

She glanced up at Ymir with a warm smile then back down at her palm. The room felt more comfortable to Krista. She went back to tracing and her thumb continued, too.

"It shows you're a dependable person when things are going wrong. You have a good head on your shoulders."

Krista traced the life line over and over, feeling the breaks in the otherwise strong line.

Both the heart and life line had numerous breaks in it. How many times had Ymir been hurt and betrayed?

Krista glanced up at Ymir to see she was watching.

A feeling of gentleness came through Krista as she lifted the hand to kiss the broken heart and life line.

"You have a lot of breaks in the life and heart line." She said, pulling away with a soft smile.

"It means you've had many traumatic experiences and betrayals."

She put the hand down, not sure why she had to kiss the woman's hand. It seemed appropriate to her. Maybe it wasn't.

Krista glanced away from Ymir, blushing.

Seriously, why did she do that? She fidgeted with the bed covers.

Krista had Ymir's undivided attention for the first few statements; they were flattering, she had to admit that.

But then when she reached the last one, it struck something in her, something she didn't want anyone to prod.

And when she kissed her palm, Ymir withdrew her hand instantly, her warm expression going sour as she glared at her, harshly.

It wasn't that she was mad her in particular, but she was pissed that she couldn't bring herself to accept the terms. She got up and walked away from her usual spot, her urge to smoke increased by tenfold, what the hell was that girl doing? All that voodoo shit...the fuck did they smoke up in Seattle? Ymir gritted her teeth, her thoughts lost in the past; she furiously smoked, breathing it in and out deeply to try to collect herself.

"As if it's any different from the next," Ymir murmured to herself. "The fuck."

Krista flinched when she felt Ymir shot away. She felt something catch in her throat as she held tightly to the bed. It took all her strength to look where Ymir went when she smelled smoke. The woman was off in the corner of the room, puffing and muttering something.

Krista averted her gaze.

She suddenly didn't want to be in the same room as Ymir. The familiar feeling of guilt wracked her frame as she took deep and soft breaths. She wanted to say sorry but the atmosphere suffocated her.

Krista swung her legs off the side of the bed in the opposite direction of Ymir. She sat there, wondering if she should run to the bathroom or take a walk by herself.

Krista stood, feeling her back ache but not hurt as bad as the first few days.

"I-I'm sorry… for making you uncomfortable." She licked her lips.

"I d-don't know why I…um…ki-kissed your hand." Her stuttering was coming back. It always happened when she got anxious. She took quick but quiet steps towards the door. She was afraid the girl would call her something horrible.

Ymir ignored her, she was far too deep in her thoughts to notice the girl even said anything. She sauntered here and there, then stopped to look out the window, her stress levels suddenly rising. She was getting pissed, pissed over herself. Fuck.

She had been holding it all in, just having a mere reading was enough to set her off. She already had to deal with coping over Ilse's death, but now she had to deal, once again, with things she had pushed away; she didn't like being read by anyone, she was usually the one who did the reading after all.

"Uncomfortable, uncomfortable, I fucking beyond that," Ymir muttered when she heard that word surface. Within seconds she finished that cigarette, she tossed it to the floor to snuff it out and she finally turned around to see Krista trying to get out of the room. She tried her best to control her voice, she managed to let out,"Where the hell are you going?" but with a softer voice.

Krista had tears in her eyes when Ymir caught her trying to flee.

She turned around, wringing her shirt over and over, looking at the ground.

"You're really angry." She uttered, biting her lip and kicking the ground.

"I feel bad that I caused it." She glanced up at Ymir and saw she had those angry eyes on her.

"I didn't mean to make you mad with what I did. I-I was just…I don't know." This time Krista felt her tears fall down as she angrily brushed them away.

"I thought you'd smile more if I did that." Krista shivered and was able to hold back her tears. She defiantly held her gaze with Ymir. She remembered seeing the softer look Ymir had when she was reading her palm.

When it came to the breaks in her life and heart line, Krista thought it'd be sad to just say it without doing anything. So she kissed her palm as if to acknowledge it and say things will get better. Perhaps she shouldn't have at all.

Ymir stared at her, hard, judging her, asking herself who the girl thinks she is. She spoke, tone low,"I'm not mad about you kissing my hand if that's what you're upset about-"

She paused midway, then headed for the door herself, gently brushing shoulders with her. She didn't want to talk anymore, she couldn't bring herself to do so.

She lacked the patience to do anything, to say anything about such a thing.

She stormed out of the room, madder than she had ever been, more than usual.

-...-

Ymir never visited her again, not even when it was the day she was discharged- she didn't want to speak about that incident. Outbursts like these happened more often now, as a result, fellow Rangers often gave her space. Crews learned to fetch her what she needed over the past few weeks; the excuse slapped on her by everyone was the loss of Ilse.

Come to think of it, losing Ilse really did make Ymir lose her own mind. She had no one to control her anger, no one to talk her down from whenever her moments rose to where she would lash out. Either she was brooding, working on Titan, or she was off picking fights in the streets of Los Angeles; the first option was the most preferred by everyone, the rest increased with aggression.

In truth, such behavior was what led her to prison. She pushed that thought away as the following day of Krista's discharge was meant to be the day when they tested their first Drift.

Ymir was at the bridge to where she was waiting for Krista- all thoughts of anger had lessened at this point, now she was no longer threatening, it was enough for the crew to calmly work with her.

Krista recalled her palm reading over and over about how Ymir's actions proved her affection. Krista could only conclude that Ymir was mad at her.

She spent the time in between on crash courses and training till it was the day. Crew members, a pair called Connie and Sasha, helped her into the new suit, explaining functions she already went over. Her floor manager caught a glance at her and was left huffing.

Krista took a few experimental steps in the suit. It was lightweight and stuck to her like a second skin.

Krista sighed and felt a frown tug at her lips. This would be the first time in two weeks since she saw Ymir.

'And we're supposed to be partners.' She glanced down at the floor and watching the busy staff work like ants.

Krista looked back up and saw Ymir waiting for her. She didn't look angry but that didn't mean it was ok. Krista was only able to talk with her for a week and then was isolated from her for two weeks because of some reason.

Krista eyed Ymir's suit and then the Jaeger.

Ymir, who left her for two weeks, who didn't even see her when she was discharged, was about to see the skeletons in her closet.

Krista felt like she should've been angry, upset, and anxious, but instead felt calm. Ymir had this strange effect that made Krista feel like her problems were ok. That she didn't have to be what others saw her as—a sweet, innocent and small woman who was submissive and didn't know what was best for her.

"Hey," Krista finally said and looked into Ymir's amber. Krista still didn't know how to decipher what she saw, but it wasn't disgust or contempt at least.

Ymir finally looked up, herself suited accordingly with the familiar outfit. She didn't glare as usual, but her eyes were cold and passive. Once the crew finished some last minute adjustments, she finally spoke to her,"When we enter that thing, what you see stays there. No discussion is needed since we'll both know how we feel about it."

Krista nodded.

"It's a promise then." Krista frowned, hoping Ymir held her end of it. She kept glancing over at Ymir until finally she sighed and just stared at her.

"You have really long legs," she muttered, eying the length of them. The skintight suit didn't help, either. It made her legs slim and long.

Krista pulled her gaze away, looking at the Titan and feeling hot. She lightly fanned her face.

 _"Rangers, report to the helm,"_ the intercom instructed.

Side by side they walked with one another, Ymir kept her eyes trained on the bridge, not even bothering to notice Krista.

Krista stuck with Ymir until they were inside. She stopped and glanced around. The interior was a lot more spacious than she expected. It was strange but fascinating to see the interior.

Once inside the helm, Ymir immediately took over to the right, stating,"I'm piloting this since it's your first Drift. Whatever you do, just let the thoughts flow, don't latch onto one moment or else we lose our connections."

She hooked herself up to the system and as rearing to go, wanting to get this over with as soon as she could.

Ymir was already telling her how things would work. Krista quickly went to her side and followed Ymir's lead. Anxiety was rushing through her but she calmed it down.

Ymir was going to be in her head.

She looked over at Ymir, wondering how the woman was feeling right now. She bit her lip and looked forward.

"I'm ready," she said more to herself than anyone.

 _"Connecting pilots through Neural Bridge,"_ the intercom announced.

Ymir stiffly stood there as it had been months she had done this; she waited for the familiar kick to hit her and send her mind reeling through a torrent of blue and white images. Slowly, she closed her eyes and felt the shock pulse through her body, her door opening wide enough to allow Krista to walk through.


	3. Chapter 3

_'Initiating Neural Handshake.'_

Ymir began to relive her own life from as far as she could remember, then as she grew older, the more obscure it had gotten. Ilse was born a year ahead of her, she was always the more accomplished of the two despite both of them excelling in their field. They were flashes, going on and on, showing only glimpses of what Ymir had gone through- mere glimpses meant thoughts were flowing through the mind.

At this point, she wasn't thinking of herself, she was just letting them go like they were nothing.

Krista felt her body grow distant as new but familiar emotions hit her. She saw Ymir's life pass by in flashes. She could only glimpse through as she didn't try to hold onto anything. Their memories were mingling together. She was losing track which memories were hers.

A picture of a blond little girl and her mother—two of the same images, being throw into the fire.

Several students filing in and out of class, Krista staying at her desk, working and laughing, and telling the teacher she'd like to stay in the home room after school to finish homework.

A child crying at a funeral.

Krista being thrown out of a car and into the mud, screams from a woman, and mud splattering all over her as it peeled out of a drive way.

"No! I don't want to—" words rang out from the blue and a knife was thrown. A loud scream. Ambulance. Staff send child abuse reports. Stitches on Krista's rear.

Krista along a rainy beach that is barely lit by street lamps. She falls into the ocean.

Krista crying in a bathroom, throwing away the letter saying she didn't score high enough to be an enlisted Ranger.

A child was looking up at her mom, pointing at a princess doll.

_"I want to be a princess."_

_"You won't be. Princesses are pretty."_

Krista felt her eyes open as the memories were slowing down. The pit of her stomach gnawed with emptiness and her throat felt hoarse.

"Don't latch onto it!" Ymir warned her. "We hadn't even moved the arms yet!"

At the same time, another memory emerged, one of her being back in that pathetic little town while holding a knife, a bloodstained knife- she pushed that thought easily away, not letting it overwhelm her.

"Do it just like that!" Ymir said, knowing she had purposely showed her a specific memory and then shoved it away.

Krista could barely hear Ymir's voice as something acidic was making its way up to her mouth. She swallowed whatever it was and breathed slowly.

She nodded and closed her eyes again. She let the memories leave. She knew they'd be back another time. The rest of her memories went by. Some that she had forgotten and a few which should've remained gone.

Krista opened her eyes when she felt the memories stabilize and all she felt was Ymir's breathing. She felt the other woman in her mind. The space between them in the Jaeger was an overstatement.

Krista licked her lips as her eyes were focusing on the atmosphere.

Ymir knew everything.

Krista knew everything.

And they kept their word.

Ymir breathed deeply knowing that what she saw was no different than the next person; at least, that was what she told herself repeatedly.

There were moments that made her contemplate over what she had just seen, but she let them go so that they could stabilize. Once they had shared what felt like an entire lifetime with one another, Ymir was the first to initiate movement.

She raised her right her right hand, causing Titan to move its own right hand as well. She tested her fingers, moving them to see if the Titan's own fingers moved; she could practically feel the joints moving outside.

She gave a genuine smile, a short laugh, and then glanced at Krista.

"Holy fuck, it works!" Ymir exclaimed happily.

"You two are at 100%," Hanji told them over the intercom,"you're lining up nicely."

Krista's stomach was sloshing around but she was able to regain control. She took deep breaths, feeling sweat go down her face. She could hear two heartbeats instead of one. Then, she felt happiness.

She looked over to see Ymir laughing and with a smile.

Whoa.

Krista couldn't help but smile and giggle, too. She watched Titan's arm move about. Nervously, she outstretched a hand and the arm moved.

Krista's eyes widened.

"It works," she repeated Ymir's statement. She glanced back over to Ymir.

They brought their left hand up, then used the right to punch it into the palm.

The thundering of metal resonated outside, along with the claps of many that were looking. It felt so right to be inside the Jaeger, just so right, Ymir couldn't even describe her euphoria in which she reveled in. They positioned their arms back at their sides to show that there was complete control. Once more, she glanced at Krista, but then saw something else, something out of her thoughts.

Her mind backtracked to a run down home in the middle of a desert, at night. She remembered seeing the frightened man's face, how she drove her knife deeply into him how much of a rush she got that was incomparable to the Jaeger. She tried to brush it off, but the more she done so, the more she was stuck in that memory; it went from vague blurs to clear memories.

The echoes that came became solid sounds, she started recalling it, she tried hiding it.

"Shitshitshitshit **shit**."

Krista didn't have time to revel in the happiness and pride the was swelling within her. Something hit her like a brick wall.

A memory appeared and it was consuming her.

It was Ymir's memory. Both were dressed in their civilian clothes- they had quickly been pulled too far into the Drift.

"Ymir," Krista's voice sounded far away as she was brought to a desert. She saw Ymir and what she had done, but she knew that they were supposed to be in the Jaeger, not here.

"Ymir," Krista was calling out to her. What could she do to make her jolt her back?

"Don't dwell on it," Krista yelled but wasn't sure if she said it at all. Her voice was gone in this memory and she didn't know if she said it in real life.

The memory was becoming too realistic.

Krista was took deep and slow breaths as she ran to Ymir's memory self. She went by her, trying to tug her away, but she was frozen. Her hands were bloody and holding a knife. A man was shivering on the ground, blood flowing.

Krista took hold of Ymir's messy hands and kissed the palms of it. Last time she did that, the woman didn't see her for two weeks.

Maybe she'd think of that and would be able to pull away. Even if Ymir got angry at her, it would at least help her stop chasing her memories.

Instead of seeing Krista, Ymir saw Ilse pulling her away.

She yanked her arm away and started running. She knew she was in a Jaeger, she knew she was supposed to be elsewhere. Slowly, the memory faded away and she was back in the Jaeger, shaking her head and thoughts out. She regained control, telling her,"I'm good, I'm good."

Why did it have to happen now?

She felt a burning sensation. All the anger diluted into sick and twisted pleasure, she had to let it course through her head before calming down. Soon, she was back on track, still feeling that ghosting feeling of her hands being kissed- she looked at them, then at Krista.

"You're done," Hanji said over the intercom, confirming their reality.

They were back in the Jaeger as if it never happened.

Ymir huffed out a sigh and immediately detached herself from her spot, she fell to her knees and slowly got up, breathing deeply. "Damn, what a trip."

Krista fell forward with a sigh as Hanji announced the end of the trial. She sloppily undid herself until she wobbled out of the co-pilot seat. She rubbed her face with a groan.

Even though they were only there for a few minutes, Krista could feel Ymir. She was like air on her skin.

"That was…hectic," Krista felt her stomach still swirling in uneasiness. Her anxiety was getting the best of her.

Krista leaned against one of the walls of the Jaeger, pressing her forehead against the cold steel. She took more deep breaths, counting to ten before standing up right and walking towards the Jaeger door.

"I need to use the bathroom." She excused herself, staggering out.

Ymir hadn't moved from her spot, she was still collecting her thoughts, along with Krista's.

"It's all good," she distantly said.

There was more to the girl, more than she could have even imagined. She shook her head once more and uneasily eased herself up onto her feet.

\---------------------------------------------------

Date: April 3 2016  
Location: Ymir's Apartment, Los Angeles, CA, United States  
Time: 1900

Ymir was sitting in her spacious penthouse, absently watching television and sipping on beer. She was allowed to be given leave for a week to prepare herself for deployment. Days had gone by, she hadn't seen Krista since the trial- she wasn't planning to, after all, she had to go visit Ilse soon.

In an hour or two she would leave, she was just waiting for traffic to lessen so she could drive up the 14 to get back to her small town. As much as she hated going there, she had to anyway to say her last words. A back of a pair of clothes sat at the door.

Her leg shook against the coffee table, a sign that she needed to smoke soon.

Sighing, she got up and headed for the bar in the kitchen to get her pack. Just as she was about to light it, there was a knock on her door. She glared at it, disturbed, but decided to answer it. She opened it and looked down, cigarette hanging from her mouth.

It was Krista.

"Hm?"

Krista felt her face flush when Ymir answered. She immediately glanced down.

"H-hey," she felt like a creeper. She didn't ask anyone for Ymir's address. She knew it by heart from Ymir's memories.

"I-I hadn't heard from you in awhile…like a week or so…so I was checking on you." Krista bit her tongue as she glanced back up to familiar amber.

"How's your vacation?" Krista asked, trying to lessen her fear that Ymir was mad, again, for her kissing her hand.

"I'm going up to Acton to visit Ilse," Ymir stated, looking at the bag on the floor. "...wanna come with? There's nothing better to do."

Krista was caught off guard at the sudden invitation.

"Oh, yeah, I'll go." Krista mulled it over while fidgeting.

"Do I need…anything?" She asked. Krista wasn't sure if she needed to bring formal clothes. Her mind told her no, but it didn't hurt to ask.

Krista peeked behind Ymir to see a nice floor plan.

"Luxurious," she smiled at Ymir, though the woman ignored her.

"I'll be staying for a week, you can borrow some of Ilse's clothes when we get there," Ymir said as she pushed by her with the bag; she then locked the door. She led her down to the parking lot to where a beaten up pick-up was parked alone, she tossed her things into the bed and took the driver's side, turning the ignition and waiting for her to get in.

Within minutes they were cruising down Sunset, heading for the 14 Freeway to where the godawful traffic occupied them for a while- the radio was on but only soft.

Ymir leaned her head against the glass and absently followed the convertible in front of her. "This place is a shit show, I tell you, I'd've love to take the Hong Kong or Tokyo Shatterdome."

Krista hadn't wandered far from the Shatterdome when she moved here for the program. The few times she did leave were work-related.

"I never really got out and looked around. My mind was always on work," she replied. She was working tooth and nail to show she deserved a second chance.

"Though, I could do without the heat. I miss the Seattle rain," she smiled at the memories of walking in the downpour without an umbrella. Sometimes, she'd go to the ocean and wade in the shallow. It was always warmer when it was raining.

However, there were dark memories of that, too.

"Sure miss it." She said under her breath.

It was easy to not be seen at the beach with the waves rolling and the thick sheets of rain. Nobody would be able to hear anything, either.

Krista's eyes closed, thinking of the night where she let herself drop into the deep end of the docks during a bad storm.

Ymir focused on the road when the cars thinned out, she immediately took to bursting her speed down, ignoring and swerving by the other drivers. Within half an hour she was making her way in the last city before her town, she drove on, uncaring.

"Whenever it rains back in Acton, it smells like a wet horse...that's the only thing I enjoyed really, hopefully rain season starts, I wanna smell that again," Ymir sighed as she followed a turn on the freeway. Soon enough, the urban houses and buildings bled into the desert mountain sides, great highs covered both of them as they went on, Ymir reveled at going her speed, it felt too damn right.

She let one hand go to get a cigarette to light, she lit it and huffed, slowly while rolling down the window.

Krista eyed the speedometer on the truck but didn't question Ymir (the woman was going at 80 for Christ's sake). She rolled down her window to feel the fresh air. It was refreshing compared the stuffy air in the Shatterdome.

"That doesn't sound like a pleasant smell." She tried to imagine wanting to smell that odor but couldn't relate to it. "When it rained in Seattle, it smelled like sea salt, pines, and of lilac." She missed that smell. "Well, that's how the beach smelled like."

Krista smiled and rested her arm on the door, letting her hand hang outside against the truck.

"Desert rain's heavenly, really."

They broke from the mountains and were greeted by plains dotted with ranch houses, their water tanks and fences, the horses that roamed here and there. Ymir kept her eyes trained ahead, flying by one exit and then heading out onto another to come onto a black road, she followed it into a turn and then used her momentum to push her way down a straight one.

"The beach is nice, much nicer than this sore sight- I swear this place is more dead than death," Ymir huffed as she threw out her cigarette.

Eventually, she pulled into a dirt road that led up a mountain side, her truck's engine roared as it worked on, going by the spaced out houses that had long fences.

The juniper trees offered little shade, the dried brush lined uncleared lots, vacant and forgotten. Here and there, abandoned cars rusted under the sun, it truly looked like trash on the landscape.

Soon enough, they came across a vast property that was lined with a black vinyl fence that stood at six feet; a gate that opened with two doors slowly gave way to them, Ymir drove onto the land and the gates closed behind her. All around them were goats, just a dozen or two, incessantly calling for feed, though they made way for Ymir to drive through.

They drove by a red barn that had pens outside individual stalls for horses to bask out; a man with blond hair and a black undercut stood outside, throwing hay at the ground for the goats. He waved to Ymir, his red sleeves pulled up for work.

"That's Jean, he takes care of the animals when I'm not home. Got him a year ago," Ymir explained.

They arrived at a one=story house, though it stretched for a while and was wider than most; she pulled up at the drive way and parked, getting out and then stretching.

The sky was a black pitch, endless with numerous stars in the untainted country air. Ymir looked up to admire them for a moment, then headed for the front door.

Krista stepped out of the truck and glanced around up at the sky. It had been years since she was able to see the starry sky like this.

"Makes me almost wish I wasn't in the city," Krista murmured, searching and spotting constellations. She went around the truck and went to Ymir's side, waiting to be escorted inside.

The environment was new to her. The drier parts of Washington weren't like this at all.

Ymir was right. It was rather lonely out here.

She glanced up at the house. It was like how she remembered it—well, how Ymir did. Krista felt like she knew it all of her life even if this was the first time.

"It's strange," she said, looking up at Ymir, "that it feels like I've been here so many times, but I never once set foot within miles of this place."

A small smile came over her as she recalled some of Ymir's memories of the place. Not all were good but there was still some that were pleasant with her and Ilse.

"The Drift gives you another life," Ymir reasoned as she entered and ushered her in.

She turned the lights on to reveal a rather bleak home.

While it was furnished, it wasn't so much that it was starkly noticeable. Walls that once were lined with decor were void of them, leaving only vestiges of lighter outlines to where paintings and various paraphernalia. Ymir never bothered with refurnishing the place, not after when she sold most of their things- she just never saw the need to do so.

An empty home reflected so much about a person, Ymir was fine with that. She dragged her luggage around and stopped it at her door, she went to the kitchen and looked into the nearly empty fridge, pulled out a bottle of beer, and went to the couch in the living room to do as she had done back in her apartment.

She slipped back to absently drinking, there was no television to keep her entertained.

She had a second bottle at hand, she placed it on the table to offer for Krista.

"You can relax with me, not much happens here."

Krista ran a hand on a table, collecting dust on her fingertips. She smeared it onto her jeans and went to the living room when she heard the fridge open.

She sat on the same couch as Ymir with a generous amount of space. Krista saw the extra bottle.

"I don't drink." She grimaced as memories resurfaced. While Ymir drank, she absently looked around, trying to find where pictures and personals used to be. It seemed like a shell of its former self.

The place was eerily quiet except for the noise they made.

Outside was a level above desert. Inside was even more barren to Krista; the home was sparse with remnants of what used to be.

"There wasn't much to do here, was there?" Krista frowned. She already knew the answer. Krista could recall the memories of quietness and not a thing in the world to do. The hollow sound of a coyote crying in the distance amplified the isolation.

The only comfort she could find was her and Ymir's breathing.

"Welcome to my shit hole," Ymir gently laughed, though she was frowning, She reclined deeply and placed her booted feet against the table, pushing away the dust with her heels. "You're free to look in the rooms, not much entertainment there but it's got more stuff than here."

She glanced down at the hallway, suddenly remembering how her mother used to drag her by her hair or when her father used to stumble around in there drunk and pissed. Oh, the good times, she fondly found herself smiling at the dysfunction in her life.

She remembered where most of the portraits were kept.

"If you wanna see stuff, they're in my parents' room, pics and all."

She reached around and found herself smoking again, the only comfort she had in this place, that familiar burn she grew accustomed to.

Krista could feel the unhappiness when she glanced down the hallway Ymir had mentioned.

"I'm fine." She replied. She closed her eyes, trying to calm her stomach. The quietness was becoming too much.

"Do you have any music?" Krista questioned when she smelled smoke. She didn't want to be left to her own devices just yet. Her mind was beginning to wander as the familiar feeling of something gnawing on her stomach began.

"I get anxiety in new places." She murmured even though they both knew she was as familiar with it as Ymir. She knew what had went on in this house. It was overwhelming to feel what Ymir had felt on top of her own.

There was an old radio sitting by the fireplace, it still worked as Ymir repaired it herself. She got up, turned the dials, and gave sound into the room; some shitty country station was playing, it was the only music she could get her hands on. She grimaced at the baritone drawl and sighed, then settled down at her spot again, smoking calmly.

Whatever she had been through before, it wasn't getting to her now; she considered it normal and she was fine with it.

"If you want toys, there garage is full of them. It's our- my workshop," Ymir found correcting herself, trying to suggest things to do in this limited home. She had to admit, she was slightly embarrassed at the lack of activities.

The lack of people brought less action in the home, less things to yell at or kick around; by now, Ymir was itching for a fight, to do something other than drinking and smoking. That aggression she always held was what was added into her plague of boredom; people do stupid shit when they were bored, she wanted to go back to her apartment but she would be doing the same shit there.

Krista felt her mind focusing on the song as she began to try and relax. The idea of toys in the garage interested her.

"I'd like to see it tomorrow." It was too late to try and get into anything. She kept listening to the unfamiliar song as it ended.

Then, a new and familiar song came up.

Krista laughed.

"Ymir, do you know how to dance?" She stood up and went to the radio to turn it up a bit. The song brought back memories of her and her grandparents at a wedding. She recalled her grandfather teaching her how to line dance.

It was some woman singing this time, it was much more bearable than the men; Ymir stared at her as though she were crazy, but she shrugged it off.

"Ah, not much really," Ymir admitted,"no one here to dance with."

Damn, it was really embarrassing to not have much to do to entertain herself with. She pulled herself up and placed her beer down, she snuffed her cigarette onto a used ashtray and walked to her to the clear spot in the vast living room; may as well do something.

Krista glanced at Ymir.

"Really? I thought you would've with those dancer legs you have," she smiled at her. She went to Ymir and quickly put her right arm on the woman's shoulder. Her left hand slid into Ymir's right.

"Do you know enough to lead?" Krista gave a teasing squeeze on the woman's shoulder, looking up. She never realized how tall she was until she was almost flush against her.

'You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.'

Krista glanced down at their feet, making sure nobody was going to be stepped on.

Oh.

Those legs.

"I guess I could lead," Ymir said slowly as she took her hand, only now she realized how much smaller she was in comparison with her. That small hand clasping against her much larger one amazed her, she stared for a moment before looking down at Krista, eyes slightly widening in pleasant surprise.

She moved her feet, finding Krista moving along with her. It was slow, not going so fast- strangely, it felt right to do it. That feeling of being together, it was like being back in the Drift. The only time she felt synchronization was when she worked with Ilse, steadily building machines with her- now she was dancing with someone, someone she had been connected to a week ago.

There was something there, tugging in the back of her mind, she felt it before when she was sparring with her.

Krista went with Ymir, feeling her glide her across the living room. Her hand was cold from the beer but slowly began to warm up. The small space between their bodies lessened as the song went.

"I think it'd be a bit too funny to lead you," Krista admitted with a laugh. "Having tiny me leading a tower like you."

Krista almost snorted at the idea. She was sure if someone saw Ymir's back, they wouldn't even see Krista in front.

Krista squeezed Ymir's hand in thought.

"I used to take a lot of dance lessons in Seattle," she said, hoping Ymir would recall that memory.

Despite what Ymir said about not dancing often, she was doing well. Krista didn't budge to look down at their footwork. She knew she'd blush all over again.

"Another student would often be my partner in duets."

Krista vaguely thought that it had been that long since she had danced. Even then, when she did, it wasn't as comfortable as now. Krista could predict Ymir's movements and how she'd lead. She felt her heartbeat and could almost taste the thoughts that ran through her mind.

Krista glanced up at amber wondering if Ymir felt comfortable. Krista bit her lip and averted her gaze.

What was she doing? Nothing would scream _'I think you're attractive'_ more than making the excuse of making Ymir dance with her.

Ymir found Krista pressing against her, that closeness made her shift about but she didn't move away from her. Being so close to someone was too foreign, she had no control over what she was doing, no idea on what to do. When Krista looked up at her for a moment, Ymir was nearly taken aback but kept a cool face on, focusing on enjoying herself.

She was confused over this, but it was the good kind of confusion, the kind you wanted to go on as there was an answer later on.

"I never danced with anyone, clubs don't count much for anything like this," Ymir let out, having no idea how to converse about the subject.

Leading her on killed the time, the softness of the singer mixed with another was too soothing, Ymir slipped into a state of being more comfortable with Krista being so close to her, though thoughts lingered in the back of her head; thoughts she had to push away to have a grasp on herself.

Krista was almost leaning into Ymir, having her head rest on her. Whether her fondness for Ymir was platonic or not, she was happy she had someone who saw what she had been through and accepted it. The freckled woman kept her promise of not saying anything and she didn't do anything to prove she liked Krista any less.

It was an unconditional friendship.

Krista thought about the clubs when Ymir mentioned it. She had went to a few with classmates to show off but it ended with drinking and drama.

"Oh, yeah, they definitely don't." Krista pulled her head away from Ymir's chest—when did she do that? She frowned.

"It's all about grinding and twerking, right?" She laughed at the memories of her classmates doing it. "God, that's awful."

She giggled, pressing her face into Ymir to quiet her laughter.

"Oh," Krista pulled away with a serious face, "do you actually like it when people do that?"

Krista's eyebrows twitched. Her firm, judgmental frown was cracking. Blue eyes were swimming in mirth. Then another laugh came.

"Please say you don't," Krista said as she stopped dancing as the song ended and held onto Ymir, giggling.

"You kidding me? I hate it, very unnatural, the body...isn't meant to move like that," Ymir let out, trying too hard not to laugh, she was smiling to hold it back. She found herself further embracing Krista and letting her rest her head against her chest; it felt too right, though something was holding her back, something.

That one thing.

Ymir stared blankly at the wall, her smile fading away. She didn't frown but the traces of that happiness she felt ebbed away, she unknowingly held her a bit tighter, she was getting anxious over it.

That one thing.

In truth, she had danced before, she had, and she used to be decent with it, but that all faded away into distant memories she cast out. When she found resolve, she looked down at Krista, silently telling her to help but she shook it away and pulled away from her to return to her spot on the couch. She was back to drinking and smoking again, though this time she held a crestfallen look.

"...sorry."

Krista felt Ymir's happiness radiate in her. It was warm and exciting. Krista's body felt like it had a furnace within her, kindling her and Ymir's smiles. Krista was able to calm her laughter and felt Ymir was tense.

Only her happiness was in the dying fire now.

Krista glanced up to see Ymir staring down at her. Those amber were searching for something. Krista brought her hand up to Ymir's face to try and get back her back to now, but she had already strode across the room and onto the couch.

Krista was left in the middle of the living room as Ymir went back to before.

The only evidence that Ymir had danced with her was her warm hand and the ghost of the arm that held her side.

"It's fine," she softly replied.

There were things not press. They also came up with an agreement to not talk about it, too.

The look on Ymir's face.

Krista felt herself frown and go to the couch to sit with her. Instead of being at the other end, she sat a cushion away.

Krista's eyes were on Ymir but she withdrew her gaze, not knowing what to do. She couldn't outright ask what was wrong or tell her she was there for her because Ymir already knew. Ymir's hands were nursing a beer and cigarette so holding her hand to reassure her wasn't an option.

Krista slid her hand onto Ymir's thigh, trying her best not to startle her. She only rested it there to show she was beside Ymir.

The house was almost returning to its blaring silence.

Krista tried to drown herself in a hum—the song they danced to.

Her eyes fell to the hand resting upon her thigh; she was confused once again. She followed the hand up her arm, then stared at Krista quizzically.

"...why do you keep touching me?" She asked slowly, suspicious; this was something she hardly seen in the Drift.

"I can't question what's going on," Krista said with a small smile.

She had ideas on what could've caused Ymir to withdraw, but couldn't ask.

"We promised we wouldn't speak of things. We already know the things that're in each other's heads. The only comfort left to give is to know I am physically here."

She removed her hand from Ymir's thigh. She leaned back in the couch, trying her best to remain calm.

"I like it when you smile. It's a bit contagious." She admitted.

Krista 's smile became sincere.

"Is it wrong to want to see you smile a lot?" She asked, looking Ymir in the eyes. The question was something Krista couldn't answer for herself. She never had a close friend before.

Krista never felt the urge to make another laugh and smile so often.

"I just don't know what to do."

'I never had a friend before' were the words that hung in the air.

"Smiling is the last thing on my mind," she said with a shrug,"I don't really know what to do myself- say, in the Drift, you see memories but the now, do you know what goes through my head? Now? Not in there, just now?"

It was a given rule that the Drift enables both pilots to see memories and experiences, but it was limited so far as to the current mentality of either of them. The now was an inconsistent thing, always building and changing too fast for the Drift to keep up with; memories were seen but reflections upon memories were never there.

One can only speculate from a single image.

Krista sat still, trying to peer more into Ymir's memories. Her mind shot through from the past to present. She didn't know how she could possibly know or access them, but every now and then her train of thought would falter from a random image.

Was that Ymir's thought process or just her brain picking up and dropping strange memories?

"I don't know." She brought her knees up to her chest and held herself.

"Are you able to see mine?" Krista asked. She fixated her mind on the image of her home. Not Seattle but the one she left in Spokane. Though, she had lied earlier about it being there. It was actually a long drive from there, but she was used to saying Spokane so she didn't have to explain.

It was a large wooden cabin in the middle of a large yellow field surrounded by pines and birch. The mountains rose behind. The sound of creek water associated with the memory whispered in Krista's ear. The scent of wild roses, dry fields, and fresh water—summer.

Ymir shook her head. "No."

She lied yet told the truth. She could read her just by those moments but she only knew what she had seen; the person in front of her, she only understood her reasons behind her motives but not her initial thoughts of the present, her personality was a thing Ymir would have to figure out just by interacting with her in person.

"Pretty huge shit show, our lives," Ymir stated as she started dozing off, alcohol always made her sleepy. "Whoever wrote them must be a sadistic author or something, I'd punch them in the face if I ever had the chance."

She stretched and yawned, then got up.

"I'm not letting you sleep in Ilse's room, you can take mine- I have a bad back so either sleep with me or stay on the floor," Ymir said as she started heading for her room.

"A-Ah ok."

Krista quickly chased after Ymir.

"I don't want t-to sleep by you if it makes you uncomfortable," Krista quickly chimed.

Krista doubted she'd be able to sleep comfortably next to Ymir. Just dancing with her was close enough to set her face on fire.

"I-I can sleep on the floor. It's your house a-and all."

Ymir caught onto her stammering, she had an inkling about why she kept doing it but she held it back.

She opened the door to her room, it was spacious and just as empty as the house. A single bed was situated in the corner, next to it was a desk and a lamp. Other than that, there was nothing else but a closet; this was where Ymir kept her things. Imprints of furniture were on the carpet, a broken ceiling fan hung dangerously from its nails, and there was hardly any indication that Ymir had ever been here recently.

She stooped low when she settled her bag in the corner, she then remembered Krista had nothing to wear to sleep; she went into Ilse's room and fetched a shirt and a pair of loose shorts, she tossed them to Krista and started to undress herself to replace her usual clothes for sleepwear, a tank top and boxers- too plain.

As she removed her bra with her back to Krista, she started explaining,"We don't have sheets or enough pillows for you to sleep on the floor...and honestly, I don't know what crawls on the ground."

Krista patiently waited for Ymir to return. She was thrown clothes that were bigger than her but she didn't complain. She quickly went to changing. Half way through tossing on the shirt, Krista heard a familiar undo of a clasp.

Nervously, she shot a glance behind her.

A slim neck went down to sharp shoulders, resting on a toned freckled back that curved down to dimples above— Krista quickly turned away with renewed passion to put on the shorts.

"O-oh." She replied, unsure now how she'd be able to handle this. The bed didn't look too big to sleep on either. She stiffened and waited for Ymir to indicate she was done changing.

Krista put a hand to her cheek, feeling the burning sensation of a blush.

The image of the dimples, Ymir's long legs, and underwear were burning Krista's mind. She rubbed her eyes, doubting she'd sleep much knowing that much of Ymir would be sleeping next to her. It left the apex of her thighs desiring.

Ymir shoved the hem down and immediately went to bed, she immediately pulled the covers over herself and was already passed out.

Krista went towards the bed.

Right hand to the covers.

Left on the mattress.

Lift.

Slide in.

Now get the furthest away from Ymir possible.

Krista squeezed her eyes closed and held herself, ensuring she wouldn't accidentally touch Ymir.

There was no way she'd ever sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

Date: April 4 2016  
Location: Ymir's Apartment, Los Angeles, CA, United States  
Time: 0900

Ymir awoke to find Krista on the floor, she stared at her groggily, then reached down to her, poking her cheek. "Hey, wake up."

Krista felt stiff as she tried to roll over towards the voice and poking. The ground gave little to no comfort as her back protested at the abuse.

Krista groaned and with eyes still shut, she rolled onto her stomach.

"Good morning." She squinted and looked around. It seems she found a place she could finally sleep. Krista didn't recall ever getting up and laying on the floor, but she grumbled either way.

Ymir got up and went over to her bag to produce her usual clothes.

"We're going to visit Ilse in an hour," Ymir said as she headed to the bathroom, not bothering to close the door. She never bothered with it because there was no door there; she turned on the shower and immediately hopped in, uncaring about the curtain as it had been burned away.

Krista was groggy as she sat up, stretching and hearing popping sounds from her joints.

"Oh," Krista rubbed her eyes again and ran a hand through her tangled hair. She glanced to where Ymir was.

"Where's your bathro—"

Ymir's clothes hit the floor as Krista scrambled up.

"YMIR!" She cried out and quickly exited the room, covering her eyes.

The nerve of that woman! As if last night wasn't enough to fry her brain!

"God," she went to the kitchen and to its sink, turning it on and splashing her face with cold water. She held her hands to her face.

The image of the woman's flank and legs entering the shower.

Krista shivered from the cold water and kept washing till she felt she was cleansed from the image. The fire in her body subsiding enough for her to wander to the living room, waiting for her turn in the shower.

"Huh?"

Why did she call out her name?

Ymir then realized...there was no fucking door.

She choked down a laugh as she finished up, then went to fetch a towel. She dried herself off in minutes and, leaving her hair wet, she stepped out to put on some clothes. She went out to the living room to see Krista's face wet, Ymir pointed a thumb to her room, saying,"Shower's ready, no hot water though," as she paused, then asked,"Why'd you scream my name?"

Too hard not to laugh.

Too hard.

Krista glared at Ymir.

"You know why!" The image was infecting her mind again.

She glanced at Ymir, her eyes traveling downward and then shooting back up.

"I swear," she stood up and walked past Ymir, "warn me next time!"

Krista went through the room and into the bathroom.

"You're such a jerk!"

Krista began stripping and glanced at the mirror above the sink. She stared at her red face and huffed. Her eyes stared back in soft aquamarine. She held her hand to her face and pulled away. She closed her eyes, picturing the natural dark skin and freckles. Ymir's hair was down before she got in. Her legs were toned and her rear was—

A jolt of electricity sparked through her body as she shuddered.

Shaking her head, Krista got into the shower, hoping that Ymir wouldn't barge in. She kept her back to the doorway as best as she could as she vigorously scrubbed herself.

Ymir chuckled to herself as she fetched a beer, then decided against it as she remembered Ilse always trying to wean her off of it. She placed it back and waited on the couch, amusing herself with cigarettes. Looking up and down, left and right, she was growing agitated just sitting there and doing nothing. Damn, she got bored easily, she waited longer, wondering how long it took women to clean themselves.

She had an interest to peek, and so she got up from her couch and went to her room. She stopped at the corner and waited for her to get out.

Pissing people off was just one of her hobbies.

Krista turned the shower off and took a glance around the room.

Where were the towels?

"Dammit," she cursed as she got out, trying her best to not track too much water everywhere. She had to get to something dry.

"Ymir?" She called out, hoping she'd grab her a towel.

No response.

Krista quickly tiptoed into the room and turned to get to the hallway to shout more, but she was met with devious amber eyes.

Krista's whole face went red.

"YMIR!"

Krista screamed, grabbing the nearest thing on the ground—clothes—and began to throw it at her.

"GET OUT! GET OUT! GET **OUT**!"

She kept assaulting the dark skinned woman with everything in reach.

Ymir didn't budge, only burst into laughter while holding her sides.

Damn, the blond did have a nice body though...

Ymir slowly retreated into the living room after several hits. She lied, laughing even more,"I was gonna give you a towel!"

"I doubt it!" Krista's voice was shrill as she held her body.

"Where's the towel you said you were getting me?!" Krista fled back into the bathroom, only poking her head out to ensure Ymir didn't get another glance at her. "You are such a jerk!"

Tears of embarrassment were swelling up in her eyes.

Ymir saw everything.

Krista glared at the hallway.

She didn't get to see all of Ymir. That was unfair.

"I...I tossed it to the bed!" Ymir wheezed out, she had to wait for her. Man, her going red was the best thing ever. Ilse never gave her this much entertainment because she always diverted her tricks and, when lucky, often had them backfire. This one was too easy, too simple, yet she was laughing harder than she had ever been in her entire life.

She hitched her breath, once, twice, then calmed down, waiting patiently for Krista all the while smiling madly. Doing this...it made visiting Ilse seem less of a pain to deal with.

Her smile faded and she grew quiet.

She got up and headed for the door that led to the garage.

She called out,"I'll be waiting at the truck."

Krista found the towel where it was promised and dried herself off and changed into the clothes she wore from yesterday. Ymir had forgotten to give her a fresh pair. Krista went out the door after fixing her hair into a low ponytail.

Like expected, it was hot outside. She was glad to have her hair off her neck.

She hopped into the truck with Ymir and couldn't bring herself to look at the woman. She huffed and pouted, staring out her own window.

Ymir started the engine and drove silently out. Soon, when they were on the road and going through the town, Ymir finally said to her,"If you keep crossing your arms that way, the Jaeger's gonna end up doing that."

No response. Ymir had to think.

How did feeling compassion for another person go again? Hm...

"Hey, I play jokes when I'm bored, and I suppose this one went pretty far," Ymir admitted, though she had to bite her cheek to prevent herself from smiling.

"You suppose?" Krista clicked her tongue, crossing her arms even tighter to spite Ymir. She was embarrassed that Ymir saw her like that. To be honest, she didn't feel betrayed at the action, but…felt disappointed?

Krista frowned. Out of all the emotions disappointment was the prominent one. The only explanation she had was that Ymir ruined the surprise, or that she was robbed of possibly showing herself to Ymir in a more…agreeable situation.

"That was a really bad joke," she sighed, laying her head on the seat belt. She was feeling drowsy. The night on the floor made for a lousy sleeping experience.

"You sound disappointed, what's up with that?" Ymir asked as she pulled into the right of a fork in the road.

Krista wasn't surprised that Ymir caught on to her emotions.

"I'm not sure," she honestly said.

She sat still, playing with the wrinkles in her pants.

"I feel like you ruined a surprise," Krista murmured as she gave an almost mocking laugh to herself.

She rolled down the window and let the wind blow in her face.

"What surprise, I'm not sure."

Krista closed her eyes, returning to lay against the seat belt.

"Surprise?" Ymir murmured dumbly.

She kept her eyes trained on the road.

Surprise.

Ymir was never a fan of those. She had too many unpleasant ones to even bother to show enthusiasm to good ones.

She shrugged it off and eventually pulled into a cemetery.

Krista was still sleeping when she parked, so when she got out, she left her door open. She traveled down the rows and before stopping at one in particular.

Ymir stared blankly at Ilse.

It may be the last time she saw her. The last time.

The one tether that kept her in check, the one person who she depended on. She clenched her fists. She couldn't bring herself to utter a word, no witty remark, nothing. She simply stared at the earth.

Krista woke up to an unbearable amount of heat on her face. The lack of air to cool her off made her open her eyes. She glanced around and saw they were at the cemetery.

Krista got out of the rig when she saw Ymir had already left without her. She straightened her hair out from the wind as best as she could. Down the rows of tombstones stood Ymir, not moving or making a sound. Krista quietly went to the woman's side, staring at the tombstone.

From blueprints to memories, it all amounted to this person who was gone. The memories that were Ymir's began to flood her mind. A sense of longing ached in her heart. Something lost.

Krista bit the inside of her lip. She felt that it wasn't her right to cry, but the memories that Ymir had was now hers.

The loss of a sister was one.

"I never had any siblings." Her voice was firm, trying not to show Ymir she was upset. It wasn't her place to show emotions if Ymir didn't.

If she never had any siblings, why was this pain so keen? It was like Isle was her sister, too, even though she never met or spoke to the woman.

Ymir didn't even have to glance at her, just hearing her wavering voice was enough to tell her what she needed to know. Just staring down at the darker mound, watching over the same spot, unmoving, was her only comfort. They stood like that for a while before Ymir decided to finally move, her willingness to move on overtaking her.

"Let's get out of here," Ymir stated, not even suggesting it.

Krista cleared her throat.

"Ok." She followed after her friend and glanced back at the grave, finding a disturbing notion to try and become as great of a partner as Ilse was to Ymir.

Her stomach was crawling with strange and contradicting emotions—hope and despair and selfishness and selflessness.

Ymir lazily got herself back in the driver's seat, she started the truck and waited for Krista to get in. She rested her head against the wheel, thinking about what had led up to where she was now. She smirked, then softly laughed while gripping tightly to the leather.

Krista got in the rig after Ymir and buckled up. She turned towards Ymir, seeing that she was leaning against the wheel. She couldn't see if she was crying or not.

A small laugh came from the woman. Krista frowned but said nothing. She was sure her voice would break with how she felt.

"I always thought I'd be the one to go first, Ilse was always the smarter one," Ymir started, she didn't look up. "But it was her strong point that killed her, damn...at least she died in a Jaeger."

Ymir didn't say anything more about her, she had to close her off, and she tried to never bring up Ilse again, at least not when they're out of the Drift. She started driving, slowly, and headed down the road; they were back at home once more with Ymir going back into the living room to brood, just as she normally done.

Krista listened to Ymir's words and felt a tug of fear and guilt hit her. She bit her tongue and kept quiet.

Why did it have to be like this?

Krista held onto the small reserves of resolve she had left to keep from feeling obligated to Ymir, but no matter what she did, she couldn't help but get drowned in guilt.

What was she doing, being a ranger and trying to get in a Jaeger to save humanity? Wasn't it all an escape from herself, to take on bigger responsibilities and become an image she could die with?

They soon left the cemetery, but Krista's mind was held fast to the ideas of death, responsibility, and obligation.

What did Ilse think when she was a ranger?

Did she actually want to save humanity, or was it for other reasons like Krista?

They went into the house without a word and wound up on the couch, quiet and contemplating. Krista didn't ask for the radio to be turned on. She didn't feel like leaving her thoughts. Question kept plaguing her, begging her to reassess the situation. She wasn't alone anymore. She was connected deeply with another person and had no way of pushing them away.

Her original plans were no longer an option, but she couldn't let them go. All her life she dedicated for others. She never got a single thing in return. Her plans were for herself.

She couldn't allow her life to be taken from her again.

It was her choice, not Ymir's.

Yet, over and over, her mind looped.

Krista wanted to see Ymir smile and be happy. To be close friends and see another day as pilots.

She couldn't go through with her intentions if she wanted Ymir, too.

Krista glanced over to Ymir and saw her smoking again.

"Does smoking calm your nerves?" She asked after finally tiring herself out.

Ymir took a long drag and let out a long plume that slowly descended and folded onto the coffee table. Ymir nodded,"It does, it's a bad habit but what can I do about it?" She took another. "Best pleasures always kill you later on. Why you ask?"

Krista brought her knees up to her chest and kept staring at the cigarette. There were reasons why people liked them.

"I feel like I need to calm down." Krista muttered. Ymir's words ringing familiar to her ears.

"Can I try?" She asked, looking up into amber. People smoked and others knew of the deadly effects of it but it was socially acceptable. The only difference between self-harm and smoking in Krista's eyes was that one was found at a convenience store.

Ymir tucked her own cigarette between her index and middle finger, then went off to light a new one, she huffed once or twice against the lighter, readying it. She then handed it to her and watched her, intrigued that someone like Krista had even a single thought to try such a thing.

"It'll burn your throat at first, then you get used to it," Ymir warned her.

Krista took the cig, mimicking Ymir's hand posture. She put it to her lips, feeling the foreign texture against wet lips.

Inhale.

Krista coughed as she went to quickly cover her mouth. The cigarette fell as she continued to hack with watery eyes.

"Jeez," she licked her lips, wiping tears away. Her throat, like Ymir said, did burn. The taste was strange, too. Krista glanced around, trying to find where the cigarette went.

She spotted it on the floor, extinguished, and picked it back up.

"Sorry," she mumbled, looking at it with wonder at how such a small thing caused such a violent reaction. "Can I relight it?"

She put it back to her lips, looking at Ymir.

Ymir rolled her eyes, continued to watch her, and then handed her a lighter.

"Hold the flame up against the end, then breathe in to let the thing light up," Ymir explained, she had the cigarette back in her lips, too lazy to hold it.

Krista frowned at the instructions given to her.

Memories of movies came to Krista's mind as she put the cigarette on the coffee table. She leaned over, putting the end of her cigarette up to Ymir's, and slowly breathed. The end of her cigarette glowed red as renewed plumes of smoke drifted between them. Krista's eyes were focused on Ymir's as she slowly pulled away.

A careful inhale as she sat back on her side of the couch.

Ymir knew of her pain. She shared hers with Krista, too. They were closer than two people could ever get. They could light each other's self-harm on top of it all.

Pulling the cigarette out of her mouth she gave a shaky exhale as smoke left her mouth.

Ymir just...stared at her.

A kiss via cigarette?

That was definitely something new.

Just like that small flame they shared, Ymir felt a part of her that burned more than her throat- her heart skipped a beat. Those blue eyes were still staring at hers, she was entranced by them, then a message hit her, a message that only she could understand and let it process. She took her cigarette out of her mouth, holding it by her fingers once more.

"Why did you do that?"

Krista gave silent puffs as she tried to find a comfortable way to smoke. It was burning her throat still. Her thoughts were slowing down as she was leaning back into the couch, staring up at the ceiling where the smoke disappeared.

"I felt like it," she gave a small shrug. Warmth was growing inside of her as she closed her eyes. Krista didn't worry about Ymir not liking it, because in the end Ymir always made her feel like doing stupid things. It wasn't worth pining over.

Krista peered over at Ymir with a soft smile.

"It felt right."

"It felt too damn right," Ymir murmured. She was nearly done with hers. "If you wanted a kiss, you should've just said something."

Her thoughts flowed out too easily, but in truth, she just had to say it.

Krista blinked at Ymir.

She exhaled and took her cigarette out of her mouth. She crawled over to Ymir till she was sitting on her knees by Ymir. She made Ymir look at her as she carefully plucked the cigarette from between her lips and replaced it with her own.

A fire ignited in the pit of her stomach as she felt her lips quiver. Her hands shook with the cigarettes, wanting to hold Ymir's face close to her. Ymir's lips were chapped but Krista swore it was soft.

She pulled away from the chaste kiss and put the cigarette back. Krista sat back, staring at Ymir, and licked her lips. She could taste Ymir and cigarettes.

Krista's hand went to trace her own lips.

That felt right, too.

"That was interesting," Ymir commented, she couldn't shrug this one off. They were both staring at one another, Ymir couldn't stand eye contact for long; it made her squirm at her legs, shifting them here and there. This girl she couldn't look at her like one of those girls at the clubs. No, not at all.

For one, she was a Ranger. For another, she was her co-pilot.

She had seen some shit that day that she didn't need to see or know, she didn't have to but she did. Most people, she didn't know them, hence, could care less about them but for Krista, she knew nearly everything about her. It scared her because the girl knew about Ymir herself. This was all to foreign, too new, Ymir had no control over it and had very few ideas on what to do.

"Interesting," she repeated,"I liked it."

Yes, she did decide to like it.

Krista flinched when Ymir broke the silence. Her eyes widened when Ymir said she liked it. Her fingers froze on her lips as she stared at Ymir's eyes, wondering if she was telling the truth, but knew she had no reason to lie.

Krista felt her stomach bubble until she laughed. She fell back onto the couch, giggling. Her feet went into Ymir's lap as she covered her mouth.

"I liked it, too." She smiled, rubbing her eyes.

This just made everything even harder yet she felt so happy. It didn't matter right now. Her stomach was on fire and she couldn't help but wish Ymir would kiss her more.

Ymir lifted both her legs up to rest her feet against the table, her habit only came when she felt comfortable around people. She was more than relaxed, she was a bit buzzed off of...something. It couldn't be beer, she hadn't drank today. It couldn't be the cigarette, it would take a lot to get to her. It had to be the girl next to her.

She continued to watch her, that smile was infectious as she found herself give half of one to her.

Krista finished off the cigarette and laid there on the couch, smiling and thinking of the kiss over and over. Her hands returned to her bottom lift, stroking where she had tasted Ymir. The freckled woman's lips were rough but soft. Her taste was of cigarettes and something dry, but it was sweet. It made her feel excited.

Krista sat up, staring at Ymir with a blush.

"Can…can I do it again?" She bit her lip but kept her gaze. No matter how many times she spoke with Ymir, her amber eyes never revealed anything to her. They were always warm for her, though, and that was all she needed.

"I don't see why not," Ymir let out, hands open in offering. She gave a slight shrug in anticipation, wanting to see how far Krista was willing to drag this. She wanted Krista to do something, she was far beyond curious at this point.

Krista suddenly was self-conscious now that Ymir was expecting it. Honestly, it was her first kiss earlier. Realizing she didn't have much to go off of made her nervous. She crawled over to Ymir until she was leaning against her. She tilted her head to give a soft kiss on Ymir's cheek—it was softer and warmer than her lips. Krista gave more kisses around there, liking the feeling of the warmth.

Krista peeked up at Ymir's eyes, finding she was being watched now. Krista shied her gaze away. She hesitantly placed a gentle kiss on the side of Ymir's mouth. She felt the roughness and softness again. It made her stomach spark. Her hands fidgeted and accidentally brushed against Ymir's thigh. She quickly put them to her sides.

She pulled away, feeling very unsure.

"I—I don't know much beyond that." She admitted, pressing her face embarrassingly into Ymir's shoulder. She saw people kiss with their tongues in movies and sometimes in real life, but she didn't know how they did it.

Relationships were never a top priority to Krista. She was suddenly regretting her lack of experience.

"I-I'm sorry."

Krista buried her face deeper into Ymir. She inhaled, smelling smoke and Ymir's natural scent. She liked it. She softly breathed in her essence, trying to memorize it.

Ymir's hands were still outstretched, and when Krista decided against kissing her again, she softly laughed and hugged her, letting her know that she didn't have to do anything. Her hand patted her back reassuringly; she used to rush into these things but for now, she didn't feel the need to try and push her. She was too cautious to let someone get close to her nowadays, she felt she could trust Krista but at the same time, her guarded instincts and usual precautions barred her from getting any further.

She heard her breathing against her shoulder, she felt right having her right there.

Krista felt Ymir's arms around her and it felt like she belonged there. Ymir could hold all of her. She felt safe. Krista slid into Ymir's lap and kept her head on her shoulder, liking the feeling of being surrounded by her. She wrapped her arms around Ymir, holding her.

Ymir's hands were soft and gentle on her back. Krista hummed in appreciation. Ymir's scent was stronger now that she was fully in the girl's embrace.

Krista closed her eyes.

"I like how you feel and smell." Krista murmured, sniffing. Cigarettes and Ymir. She nuzzled deeper into her, gripping the back of Ymir's shirt like a child to their blanket. She smiled. "You make me feel safe."

Krista knew Ymir had others before her from the fleeting memories, but she didn't want to think Ymir saw others. Krista traced patterns against Ymir's back.

"I'm glad," Ymir felt a little smug that she was able to be a first for something, but felt stupid for suddenly being a tiny bit jealous.

Her throat still held a burn as she licked her lips again. Her mind was a little hazy.

Krista turned her head in towards Ymir's neck and put her nose against it. She was able to also peek up at Ymir's cheeks where her freckles laid. Krista tasked herself to counting them and trying to remember their various shapes and sizes.

At first she thought Krista was back to staring at her, but when her eyes shifted left and right, she realized she was counting those little fuckers splayed on her face. She let out a laugh and watched her back.

"It'll take you all day to do that."

Krista flicked her eyes up and then smiled.

"We aren't doing anything else today, are we?" Her fingers went up to connect the larger freckles into imaginary shapes.

She pulled away from Ymir's neck to get a better look at her freckles.

"Did you know some people believe freckles are angel kisses?" Krista grinned at the thought. She leaned forward, pressing her lips to the bridge of Ymir's nose. She gently went to her right and tried to kiss every freckle she had counted.

Ymir scoffed.

Angels? That was stupid. She rolled her eyes at the obscure belief as she told her,"I'm done with business here, nothing more than seeing Ilse is all. Unless you wanna check on what we worked on in the garage- hey, why aren't you kissing my lips?"

Krista pulled away. She licked her lips as her eyes looked appreciatively at Ymir's mouth. She caressed Ymir's face in her hands, pushing back any stray hairs.

Krista closed her eyes, gliding her fingertips on Ymir's jaw line. She leaned forward, kissing her softly on the lips. She held there, uncertain what Ymir would like.

Ymir surprisingly found her kissing her back, she nipped at her lip and then ran her tongue against it, hand wandering to her hair to tangle her fingers in her locks. She smiled against her, letting her do whatever she wanted.

Krista felt Ymir's lips move against hers and she felt teeth scrape on her bottom lip. Her mind went blank. It sent a thorough shiver through her body as her hands froze on Ymir's face. She didn't have time to overcome the pleasant shock either. Ymir's tongue was against her bottom lip, forgiving in the playful nip, and her hands were going through her hair.

Krista let out a muffled squeak as her senses were being overwhelmed.

Cautiously, she parted her lips and her tongue met Ymir's. She flinched on contact. Her hands stroked Ymir's face. She was so soft.

Ymir's tongue slid against hers, she softly sighed when she felt her hands stroke her cheeks, it was comforting, all too comforting. As her other hand roved lower, the front door opened to reveal Jean, dirty and sweaty for whatever the fuck he was working on. His intrusion didn't bother Ymir much, but he was overall shocked at seeing the blond straddling her.

"Um," he let out, watching them.

Ymir flipped him off, a signal to fuck off.

Jean nodded and backed out, going back outside to head back to work.

Krista felt her cheeks warming up. Feeling Ymir was satisfying and made her eager to kiss her more.

Krista heard something but Ymir didn't move away. Not happy that she had stopped kissing her, Krista pulled her closer, pressing her tongue in Ymir. Whatever it was it could wait.

Krista's hands slid down until they were on Ymir's shoulders. She wrapped them around till she was in another close hug.

Reluctantly, Ymir pulled her lips away from her, she gave her a chaste one then stopped altogether.

"Hey, Krista," Ymir started as she gently pressed her forehead against hers,"I'd rather do this elsewhere, I don't...exactly prefer to do it here."

Krista went forward to try to recapture Ymir's retreat, but was stopped with a gentle kiss. Her eyes fluttered open, feeling dazed.

Ymir was close to her. She could feel her breath on her wet lips. The taste of Ymir still lingered at the entrance of her mouth. Krista swiped her tongue over her bottom lip. Ymir.

"O-oh," was the best response she could muster as she stared into the amber. They were a lot closer than she got to experience from before. Her eyes searched into them, finding warmth and flecks of brown.

"Where's elsewhere?" Krista asked with a frown. She brushed her nose against Ymir's, closing her eyes again, huffing, and trying to recollect her scattered mind.

"My flat," Ymir answered, she kissed her quickly again and then slid her off of her lap,"we can go right now, we have nothing more to do here. I'm done with this place anyway."

She got up and went to her room to collect her bag.

Krista felt the frown tug more as she was brought off of Ymir. The ride would be long. Krista fidgeted on the couch, brushing down her hair and straightening her clothes again. Her lips were warm. Krista put her fingers back to her lips, trying to imagine Ymir's mouth and tongue there.

Krista stood up when Ymir came back with her stuff. She glanced around the house one last time and followed after.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be a lot of scenes switching between reality and the Drift, I singled them out by breaks to make them easier to tell apart

Date: April 4 2016  
Location: Ymir's Apartment, Los Angeles, CA, United States  
Time: 1400

They returned to her place, and despite the long drive, Ymir didn't laze about in her couch as she normally would; Krista had gotten her attention once again. As she settled her luggage at the door, her mind backtracked to thoughts- automatically she reverted back into her usual self, going to the fridge to get a beer and then sitting back at her couch.

She was back to where she was, she knew she could trust Krista but some things are difficult to repair.

Krista rubbed her eyes as she went to the couch of Ymir's apartment. She fell asleep on the ride back. No matter what, she always fell asleep during car rides.

Ymir was sipping on her beer and smoking. Krista didn't feel like she could handle another cigarette. Her throat protested at the thought. She was snuggled up in the corner of the couch, trying to fight off the sleep. Her mind wandered to their kissing. Her heart was a little louder in her ears as she sat up straight.

She glanced over to Ymir but she could practically feel the woman's brooding aura.

Ymir drank and turned on the tv, watching the news once more. She watched with a blank face until there was a beautiful shot of the Santa Monica Pier.

_"Weather is nice today-"_

Then a Kaiju came on screen. It was a Category 1, shaped almost like a salamander of sorts. It was swiftly swimming up the coast line until it met the ground to where it unleashed a blue flame from its orifice, the Kaiju Blue; Ymir ended up spitting up her beer as her phone exploded by her right. She picked it up, saying,"Yeah, I'm watching the news. Yeah, I see it. Yeah, she's with me. Yeah, we're going-" She slapped it on the receiver. "Krista, get up, this one's ours, we'll be riding with Colossal."

Krista shot up with Ymir at the news. A dread fell into her stomach, watching the Kaiju fall upon the coast. Her stomach was reeling. Before she could even take a step, she was hunched over and running to the bathroom and releasing the little food she had this morning.

She would be fighting it. She could die.

Death.

Krista wiped her mouth off and quickly went back to Ymir. She wondered if Ymir was this scared on her first drop.

"L-Let's go." Krista went to the door and put her shoes on and was off with Ymir.

They were speeding down Sunset, cars jamming the area but Ymir decided to take the back alleys.

"Apparently Rouge was deployed a while back in Anchorage, so that left Titan and Colossal here for the most part- poor timing really," Ymir complained over as she leaned forward, going around a corner. Within half an hour, they arrived at the Shatterdome, no one questioned their authorization as they sped down the dock, parking neat the loading bay so that they could easily sprint to their station.

Ymir ducked and dove over the chaos, making sure Krista was sprinting right by her.

"Can you keep up?" Ymir asked her over the yelling.

Krista was running as fast as she could to keep up.

"Yeah!" She yelled over the roar. Anxiety was hitting her again as the thoughts she was fighting off came back.

Krista had to make her decision.

Ymir hurdled over a cement boundary and ended up at the Titan's dock, it was already prepped and only awaiting its pilots. Ymir looked around, then a familiar voice shouted to her,"Ymir!" It was Sasha. "Ya took forever, get yer ass up in that thing!"

Connie was trailing behind her, these two were the ones who normally suited them; today they were in, unlike last week. Ymir nodded and beckoned Krista to follow, they immediately hurled into a lift that took them up high where the prep room was for their suits. Ymir calmly lit a cigarette as Sasha chided her.

"Where the hell were ya two?"

"Acton."

"Acton?" Ymir nodded, then Sasha quickly understood. "How is Ilse?"

"Sleeping well."

Krista stood close by Ymir. Her stomach was reeling despite emptying it. She kept her breathing in check, trying to remain calm, but her mind couldn't stop racing. It was thinking of Ymir's kisses and crying when her mom screamed she was useless and how she was better off dead. Its battle brought Krista's eyes to a glaze.

Ymir or her life?

Krista saw the two unfamiliar people that Ymir seemed to know. She only gave them a brief glance before returning to her brooding.

"And Jean?"

"Could be better," Ymir said. "Marco's still fighting, yeah?"

"In Tokyo," Connie said.

The lift halted at their appropriate floor, they readied their suits, implementing each piece to their bodies carefully and swiftly. As Sasha worked on Ymir's abdomen, she glanced at Krista and asked,"Ya chose her for your co-pilot?"

"She's not bad," Ymir stated out loud,"could use some experience but we never know how she is until we see her fight."

Krista's mind was slowing down as she was suited up. Having heard Sasha's comment, she inwardly flinched. She glanced over at the woman with a frown.

Was she already being doubted in her capabilities?

However, Ymir responded to show she had confidence in her to be strong. Krista bit her tongue as she stared in the direction of Titan.

To die in a Jaeger was her hopes and dreams. Nobody would question her or say her death was in vain. It was the most glorious death man could achieve and she wanted it for her suicide, but the incessant guilt and warmth for Ymir held her from mindlessly jumping off that edge. The will to fight for Ymir and to protect her was overwhelming her desire to lose everything.

Krista closed her eyes and gave a long, shaky sigh.

Connie fixed the last plate onto Krista's back, patting her down for one last moment before sending her off. Sasha, meanwhile, stared at Krista as though judging her, though Ymir flicked her by the ear, telling her,"You'll owe me $100 if we come back alive."

Sasha grimaced and her companion left the dock, letting Ymir go off on their way to the helm. Ymir checked the panels and various screens to make sure they were all in order, that no flaw was to stop them at any given time. Once she approved of them, she hooked herself up to the controls and readied herself.

"Ignore what those people think," Ymir advised her,"when we get out there, it's just you, me, and that fucker that's tearing up the Pier. Got it?"

Krista went through the normal procedures with Ymir till she was hooked up. Ymir seemed to pick up her mood at her reassurance.

"I don't like it when people do that to me." Krista voiced as she adjusted herself until she was comfortable. Everyone had always looked down on her, assuming because she wasn't fit for this work due to her stature and petite appearance. It only fed her drive to win.

Clearing her throat, Krista closed her eyes, readying for the handshake to commence.

"Understood."

The usual voice, clear as day, rang throughout the hull, _"Commencing drop,"_ before their world shifted and plummeted downwards, only ending to a brief halt before connecting to Titan. The gears clanked and locked into place as steam emanated from the exhaust pipes, soon, the voice came back once Ymir's stomach stopped lurching,"Commencing neural handshake."

Ymir mentally prepped herself for this, every time she entered the Drift, it was a huge wave that engulfed her, blinding her for a moment. She skimmed through her memories, her own and Krista's; only for a moment she lingered on when they were back at the couch a few hours ago in the morning. It was still too fresh in her mind, she found herself reveling in it.

But then other thoughts pervaded her, and oh so easily she slipped into an old thought, one she pushed out years ago. She ended up freezing in place, her body falling numb and cold as she stared into nothing in particular within the Jaeger.

-...-

Instead of being in that machine, strapped to everything and wearing the usual uniform, she was back at that house.

The furniture was there, along with the decoration and frames, Ymir was sitting on her couch once again though she looked cleaner and had no trace of alcohol or cigarettes. Perhaps she was a teenager? She looked too...nice, very nice- but there was a problem as the scene shifted, she was being yelled at by someone, another girl just a year above her.

Like hot wax melting, Ymir's appearance had changed, she looked haggard, she changed, it wasn't the good kind- she was drastically older, perhaps in her college years.

It was over summer break that this happened.

 _"You...you never spent a second caring about me!"_ That person yelled at her, it stung Ymir the worst because at that point, she thought she did care, she really did. _"It was always about you, you and your fucking problems!"_

 _"I gave more shits about you than anyone could ever bother to do!"_ Ymir shouted back at her furiously, oh, there's the Ymir everyone never heard before. _"How can you fucking say that to me, huh?! I know you go fuck that asshole all the time when I'm not here, you don't see me complaining about shit!"_ It was like there was a jolt in her timeline, Ymir couldn't fully remember how she got there, all she knew was that she was there. _"Fuck!"_

_"Ymir, you are-ah!"_

Ymir turned when the woman dropped dead on the floor, Ymir looked up to see Ilse standing behind the body, knife at hand, silent.

_"...why?"_

_"She...wouldn't stop her bullshit,"_ Ilse told her as she wiped the blood against a dirty rag; the woman had slit the girl's throat, ear to ear.

She stepped over the body as though it were trash, Ymir backed away for a moment, she wasn't able to process this.

 _"I know where the guy lives,"_ Ilse began as she handed Ymir her knife.

Ymir stared at it, she held it in her hand, the weight familiar and heavy, she knew what she had to do.

-...-

"Sir," Hanji called out as she watched the charts.

Erwin glanced over her shoulder to see the brightly flashing purple over the usual blue lights of the pilot's outlines; it was over Ymir's. "What's going on here?"

Levi stepped by them, eyes gazing over their screens.

"They were at 100% synchronization but then it suddenly dropped down to 90% on Ymir's end, and it's dropping steadily," Levi said, frowning, brows creasing,"I told you to get a new set of pilots- Ymir isn't fit for service, come to think of it, she was never..."

"If we did that, Ymir would be stupid enough to pilot that thing on her own before she let anyone else touch it." He spoke into the intercom. "Titan, what's going on in there? You're not in synch, Krista, what is going on with Ymir?"

-...-

Krista's memories left her like running water through her fingers. She didn't stray or try to keep certain ones at bay from Ymir. She'd see all of her and everything that amounted to now. Krista's and Ymir's memories were falling into one pool that they'd share.

Stop.

The water stopped.

Krista's mouth went dry as one memory overtook her vision.

The imagery of blood, knives, a woman screaming, and two sisters kept replaying in her head. She blinked back the obsessive memory at the sound of her name.

"S-Sir, s-she's not letting go!"

Krista glanced over at Ymir, seeing her between the states of thought and reality.

"Ymir!" Krista felt her stomach drop at the memory. So long she had to keep it to herself, wondering what the woman really was.

It put a doubt in the spark she felt for Ymir, knowing she killed someone

"Ymir," Krista plunged back forth into the drift, seeing the memory on replay.

"Stay with me!" 

Krista went forward to Ymir as she was in mid-scream at the stranger.

"I need you to be here with me! We need to fight!" 

Krista took her head in the Drift, holding it up to her mouth and kissing all the breaks she knew were in the lines of her hands and fate.

The sound of something guttural and loud was shaking their memories from reality.

"Ymir!" Krista begged. "Don't be unfair!"

She tugged at her hand.

"Let it go!"

Krista felt the tremors of the Kaiju nearing.

"Don't do this, not now! I-I can't do this without you!" Krista bit back her tears as she could almost feel the breath of the Kaiju. Her vision was splitting in and out of the real world and the memories. "I don't want to die anymore!"

Krista squeezed her eyes shut as a thunderous roar ripped through her body and mind.

"Pilot's at 60%, right hemisphere compromised," Hanji warned, she switched over to another intercom. "Colossal, I need you to stand guard over Titan- don't let it get damaged!"

Reiner's voice broke in. "On our way, ma'am."

A league away was Colossal, one that made the Titan dwarfed compared to it- the Kaiju, codenamed Drakos, advanced upon the Titan, getting closer by the second until a mechanical hand dropped in to grab it by its tail and haul it back. The Colossal had managed to get there on time to prevent it from getting any closer.

-...-

Ymir could hear Hanji's voice off of the intercom, and as she held the knife, she saw the feint outlining of another pair hands, one smaller and whiter than hers. Ghosting over her skin, she felt a pair of lips touch her palms, but she ignored them as she was back at night at a run-down house in the middle of the desert. She found the bastard, she pounced him at a corner, and she proceeded to bury her knife into the flesh, repeatedly, she found the drive to kill senselessly.

And she enjoyed destroying him.

She barked out a laughter as her hesitant jabs became purposeful, she found a sick, twisted thrill in doing this to the man, but it wasn't until Ilse took her wrist- Ymir wrenched it away, shouting at Ilse, _"He's just like any other fucking animal in this world!"_

 _"But you don't have to keep going at him!"_ Ilse protested. _"We need to get out of here!"_

 _"No, I'm not done with him!"_ Ymir snapped, she had truly lost her head at that point, of all the times she couldn't pull herself together, now was one of them. _"Let me have my chance!"_

 _"Goddamn it, Ymir!"_ Ilse cried as the sirens sounded off in the distance; neighbors had heard the yelling from earlier that day, people grew concerned. Everyone knew things happened in the town, Ymir's family was always the center for gossip- for violence to erupt in actual death, well, someone had to call the authorities to control the family, or what was left of it.

The next thing Ymir knew, she was in handcuffs, along with Ilse.

-...-

"Krista, this is getting critical, if Ymir gets below 40%, we'll end up losing you as well!" Hanji suddenly shouted, she was shaking.

Erwin sighed, shaking his head. "Give her a minute..."

"That's not enough!"

-...-

Ymir was out of her mind. She was losing the track of time and Krista could feel it.

"Ymir!" Her voice hoarse as fear was beginning to seep. The memories were fresh and painted in wild emotions that mirrored a threatened animal as the stabbing continued."Ymir!"

Her clothes had suddenly changed in the Drift, she was a civilian, not a Ranger

Krista was brought to the handcuffs. She heard someone's voice, saying she was going to be lost. Krista couldn't tell whether or not it was hers or someone else's. It was the voice of reason to abandon and try to survive.

"No!" 

Krista's eyes were blinded with the barrage of memories. Her voice was snapping into a snarl of fear and stubbornness.

"I won't leave her!" 

Ymir had seen her and all of her suicidal attempts at drowning at sea, trying to run away from home, being abused, and sexually assaulted.

She saw everything but not once had she saw pity or disgust!

"Ymir, stay with me! This is a memory!"

Krista held tightly to Ymir's waist.

"Remember us dancing! Remember when we kissed!"

There was nothing. Krista slammed against Ymir's back, forcing a hug as she was being led through the prison. Krista was pulling Ymir back to the open doors, away from the cage Ymir was crawling to.

"I won't let you hole up anymore! Don't you dare leave me!"

Krista was using all her strength to pull Ymir back.

"Don't you fucking dare!"

Her voice was raspy and unbridled in determination. She kept yanking at Ymir.

"Ymir! Let this go!" She screamed as her fingertips were going raw from her grasping of the rough, orange material.

Her heels dug in but the memory kept going. The darkness of the cells were growing like shadowy apparitions of the end.

"The past is gone!"

Krista stood before Ymir, trying to see into her eyes. Krista cupped Ymir's face, trying to get her attention.

"YMIR!"

Krista forced her head down into a kiss that left her lips bruised and eyes wet.

"Live with me now!"

Her face went back up, kissing her.

-...-

Ymir laughed, or she felt herself laugh.

Nothing ever goes away.

Not in the Drift.

It was like being slammed in the face with a book-ah, no, a truck.

Ymir couldn't place her tongue on what snapped her back into reality, but all she suddenly knew was that she was back inside Titan, her mind reeling back into place. She clenched her fist several times to test her reality, and once she confirmed she was where she was supposed to be- she remained connected to Krista through the Drift, though her emotions were in check.

She breathed slowly, hearing Hanji say,"Pilot is beginning to stabilize, at 80% again- Ymir, are you alright?"

Ymir reached out to flip a switch. "I'm...I'm good."

"Good, now, start moving in on Drakos," Hanji instructed,"Colossal is distracting him, there's an opening for you."

Ymir nodded and took a moment to catch her breath. She glanced over at Krista, sadly, and then returned to looking out.

Memories went by and Krista was back into reality. Her breathing was heavy as stray tears went down her face. She gulped down the lump in her throat and licked her lips. She glanced over at Ymir to see amber staring back. She looked away.

"Let's go." Krista breathed and brought her emotions back into check. She had no time to think or try to make sense of what happened.

Titan's form was fluid as the water that glided past it. The black plating shone like obsidian. Colossal was neck to neck with the Kaiju. The bloodcurdling screams and shock waves of impact from the beast sent Krista's stomach churning. Its tail was whipping around, trying to cleave Colossal as it fought off its ravenous, snapping mouth.

Pieces of metal went whizzing past Titan as sparks and the shrieking machinery from Colossal's knee joint cut above the Kaiju's sound. Liquid and oil went flowing into the ocean. The troubled joint from weeks ago went out again!

Titan's small frame took a step back. Armor plating slid past as Krista flicked switches until large thrusters came out of the Jaeger's back and legs.

Water sprayed everywhere as glints of obsidian and blue flames dashed across until metal collided with flesh. The tail whipped back and forth within Titan's grip. Colossal was on one knee, heaving the beast's razor-lined jaws away from its helm.

"We need to sever the tail!" Krista yelled.

Ymir's hands stretched out to grasp at one joint and then another of the Salamander's tail. Within minutes, they had managed to tear away at the flesh, though a foot had to be brought down at the joint to break it off completely; the Titan then got onto Drakos's head to where it mechanical hands grasped at the neck.

"Taken damage to the knee!" Bertolt's trembling voice rang.

"We got it, we got it!" Ymir assured him as the Titan's fingers of one hand took a hold of the head. Metal was pushed to the limit as she began to haul the head back, turning it, she kept doing it. "C'mon, gotta snap the neck!"

Krista held her grip on Drakos, but the salamander's body was coated with slick oil. Titan's hands kept slipping.

"Activating Titan's Claws!" Krista quickly dialed and selected the options.

Jabbing a button, Titan's hands twisted as small plates slid in unison until the fingers were talons. Titan's hand clenched and dug the barbed spears into the beast's flesh. Drakos let out a hiss as it began to writhe in Colossal's grasp. Without anything to combat against the slickness of Drakos, Colossal lost its grip almost immediately. The creature went splashing into the ocean with Titan following.

The creature dragged Titan away enough to be out of Colossal's reach. Drakos spun around and began a death roll. Its skin shredded with Titan's talons but was ripped free as Kaiju blue went spilling across the ocean. The beast reemerged torn and bleeding with wrath in its eyes. It screamed at Titan and launched itself at the Jaeger.

"THE FUCK YOU LOOKING AT!?" Ymir challenged madly at it as she switched on the jets under Titan's feet, boosting it from the ocean and up to the air to where it grasped at its body again. Ymir nearly lost it at that moment when machinery collided into fresh, mouth directly contacting its throat. Ymir flipped on several switches and shouted once more,"Activating Titan's Jaw, Unlock!"

The mandible under Titan's skull unlocked itself from its place, falling out to grasp its metal plated teeth against its throat, aiming for the windpipe and jugular.

"Lock the Jaw!" Ymir ordered as she was about to hit the last switch as Drakos decided to take them down into the blue. "Lock it, fucking lock it, Krista!"

Her anger, her rage, it was pouring into the battle, she was out of control and yet she was channeling it perfectly.

This was what Erwin wanted out of her as Ranger.

Krista couldn't see anything as bubbles and sediment from the bottom of the ocean blew up in front of Titan's view. The world was spinning fast and hard, sending Krista's stomach into a fit. The insides of Titan were clanking and the plating screeching against rocky outcrops. Buttons were turning red and alarms were going off as several cautions popped up left and right on the piloting screen. Her hand went to and fro from the force of the roll and slammed against the lock.

Their view was suddenly engulfed in fluorescent blue and the rumble and thunder of Drakos's screams made the ocean itself quake. Krista grimaced as the sound pierced her ears like a siren.

The rolling stopped and they resurfaced. The blue went down the glass to reveal a large piece of flesh in Titan's jaws.

"Where is it?!" Bertolrt spluttered.

Titan kept guard as it stepped around in a circle until a trail of Kaiju Blue led back to Colossal.

"Colossal, stay sharp!" Hanji yelled as the trail kept making its way to the downed Jaeger, but it didn't stop at it.

"Where is it going?!" Krista barked into the microphone.

"It's leaving the bay! It's going back—"

Drakos came up. Its left cheek all the way up to its forehead was an open, oozing wound. Its blood poured over it as it found its dismembered tail.

"What the fuck is it doing?" Reiner's voice was in frenzy over the microphone as Colossal was staggering into defensive.

Drakos set upon its tail like a starved dog. Hardly bothering with chewing it was forcing the tail down until it was gone in seconds.

Opening its mouth a gaseous cloud came forth.

"That thin—"

Noxious fumes ignited into flames that coiled around Colossal's outstretched arm, defending itself from the blast.

The Jaeger fell into the water.

"FUCK! WE'VE TAKEN SEVERE DAMAGE TO OUR ARM!" The reply heavy with static- they couldn't tell who was screaming on the other end.

Drakos towered with blue and white smoldering flames engulfing its body.

"Oh Jesus!" Ymir murmured as she turned the thrusters on to full. They were back to the surface, emerging a bit too late as Colossal came plummeting to the depths, though it was still operating, just unmoving; she pushed back thoughts if those guys were alive- she knew she couldn't defend the coast on her own.

Without thinking, Titan's arms were outstretched, it was back to latching on to Drako's body, once more holding it by the neck.

"Titan's only good for close-range," Ymir exclaimed,"tear off the head, just fucking tear it off! Activate TItan's Jaws, Unlock!"

The head was aimed for what was left of its head (they had taken it by the crook of its neck), and this time, they poised themselves against the ocean floor, bracing for the impact of a struggle. Ymir could feel Titan's limit being pushed, it had taken enough damage for the day, the one downside to using this Jaeger, but Ymir, as always, pushed beyond boundaries.

Krista quickly braced for impact as she shredded through the monster's side with Titan's claws. She'd wreck the muscle there in hopes it'd lessen the deadly roll it was keen to do. Once she had a lock on its arm, she felt Titan's jaw ready itself.

"Lock the Jaw!" Ymir keened.

The loud roar of Drakos and Titan's body creaking and groaning was deafening, but she knew what to do. She slapped the button for the jaw to lock.

The beast was thrashing but the weakened muscles had little to go off of. Its neck was buried in razor-teeth backed by tons of pressure in the bite. The fire consuming Drako's body was melting the outer-layer of metal. The helm was becoming a furnace.

"Activating Jaw Lock," Krista yelled above the chaos and went over, flicking up switches. Her face was red and sweat was pouring from her. "Releasing High Pressured Steam!"

The view was immediately blocked with spraying blue and white clouds of steam. Screams and struggling against the clamped jaws kept the Jaeger pilots on their toes until everything was quiet and still.

The jaw was released and the body slid into the water, extinguishing itself in the ocean. Clouds of steam set the harbor in a haze, veiling Titan and her Rangers from the world.

"Good job, Titan," the voice over the intercom was static.

Krista felt relief come over her as she sighed, feeling the helm begin to cool off. She hit the microphone button nearby.

"You too, Colossal."

As the clouds dispersed, Colossal was seen miraculously holding itself up by one arm and one leg and a half.


End file.
